
Class 

Book 



CoEyiightl?. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



CULTURE BY SELF-HELP 



Culture by Self-Help 



IN A 



Literary, an Academic or an Oratorical 
Career 



bV ^ - 

ROBERT WATERS 

h 
AUTHOR OF 

** CULTURE BY CONVERSATION," " SHAKESPEARE 

AS PORTRAYED BY HIMSELF," "jOHN 

SELDEN AND HIS TABLE TALK, "eTC. 



' Not failure but loiv aim is crime, "— LoWELL 



NEW YORK 

DODD, MEAD & COMPANY 
1909 






^1 



LiBRARY of CONGRESS 
Tv/o Copies Received 

MAR to 1809 

^ . Copyritnt tntry 
CLASS OL, ^^c. No. 



\(^l 



Copyright, 1892 
By ROBERT WATERS 



Copyright, 1909 
By DODD, mead & CO. 



A WORD TO THE READER 

The former title of this book was " Intellectual 
Pursuits; or Culture by Self-help." It is considered 
that the second or sub-title sufficiently covers the sub- 
ject matter treated; whereas the other goes too far, 
or covers more ground than the book contains. 

Although these chapters have appeared in current 
periodicals, I do not think they are any the worse for 
that. The printed page enables the author to see his 
mistakes, and I have endeavored to correct mine in 
the first impression. Not that I think my work is 
now faultless; but I am sure that it is better than 
if it had never appeared in print before. 

The work is addressed mainly to young persons 
ambitious of excellence in a literary, an academic, or 
an oratorical career; it has no pretensions to instruct- 
ing those that are experienced in this field. But when 
I say young persons, I mean those who are young 
intellectually ; and I consider all my readers who are 
still striving for improvement, still growing in knowl- 
edge and ability, as belonging to that class. Only 
those who have ceased to learn are old. I think with 
Goethe, that he 

Who has not won a name, and seeks not noble works, 

Belongs but to the elements: 

'Tis faith and service that secure individual life. 

When I first perused the Essays of Lord Bacon, I 
came upon one which I thought appealed to me per- 
sonally, and from which I derived more benefit than 



PREFACE. 

from any other composition I had so far read. I 
think it is always so with a book that is of any value. 
There is something in it, too, which appeals to every 
reader, and that seems addressed to him individually; 
and my hope is that this little book will contain at 
least one chapter which appeals to the mind of every- 
one that reads it, and which will afford him some light 
or guidance in his efforts toward a useful and honor- 
able career. I have put into my work just such things 
as I myself, in earlier years, would have profited by 
the knowledge of; and I trust that it will not only 
save many a young man from the blunders I made 
myself, but show him the best methods to secure suc- 
cess. It is not necessary that the reader should begin 
at the first chapter and read to the end; he may 
choose any chapter whose caption attracts him; and 
by so doing he will probably go farther and fare 
better than if he attempted a regular and complete 
reading of the book. At any rate, after two or three 
chapters the reader should think over the subject mat- 
ter and let it digest before going to the next. 

For the privilege of printing these chapters in one 
volume I desire to acknowledge my indebtedness to 
the editors of the periodicals in which they first ap- 
peared — to Dr. J. M. Buckley, Editor of the Christian 
Advocate; to Morris Phillips, Esq., Editor of the 
Home Journal; and to Miss Maria B. Chapin, Editor 
of Far and Near, a monthly paper published by the 
Critic Company. 

R. W. 

503 Palisade Ave., West Hoboken, N. J. 
October 1, 1908. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. — The Homes and Haunts of Genius 7 
H. — Choosing a Profession — How Men 

find out where their talent lies. . . 17 
HI. — What Genius is — The late Discus- 
sion concerning it 24 

IV. — Indications of Genius 31 

V. — The Power of Expression — News- 
paper Reading 38 

VI. — How Intellectual Power is Acquired 

— Instructive Examples 45 

VII. — Does Poverty Smother Genius? 52 

VIII. — Examples of Genius Overcoming 

Difficulty 57 

IX. — The Secret of Literary Success 71 

X. — A Word to Beginners in Literary 

Work 83 

XL — How Great Things are Done 91 

XII. — Genius in Debate — Characteristics of 

the Great Orators 100 

XIII. — Debate and Debating Societies 109 

XIV. — Some Account of a Bygone Debating 

Society 120 

XV. — Romance in Real Life — An Illustra- 
tion 130 

XVI. — Other Conceptions of Genius 138 

XVIL— Men of True Greatness I49 



vi CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XVIII. — How Genius is Awakened 159 

XIX. — How Genius is Developed 176 

XX. — Learning to Write English 188 

XXI. — Things that have Helped Me 194 

XXII. — Teaching as a Profession for 

Women 201 

XXIII. — Is Genius Hereditary? 211 

XXIV.— The Two Pitts— Influences that Form 

the Mind 218 

XXV. — How Life Develops Talent — Stepping 

from Study to Production 226 

XXVL— The Influence of Weath— The " Acci- 
dent which Produced that Particu- 
lar Designation of Mind called 

Genius " 234 

XXVII. — What Circumstances are Most Favor- 
able to the Development of 

Genius 244 

XXVIII. — The Influence of Surroundings 252 

XXIX. — Where do Men of Genius come 

from? 266 

XXX. — Ideals and Hobbies 271 

XXXI. — How a work of Genius Originates. . . .283 
XXXII. — The Material on which Genius 

Works 292 

XXXIII.— The Originality of Genius 297 

XXXIV. — " Unconscious Ease " in Literary 

Work 312 

XXXV. — How Authors Compose — Peculiar 

Habits 321 

XXXVI.— Some Great Orators— The Secret of 

their Power 331 

XXXVII.— Kossuth and Gambetta— Colonel In- 

gersoll's Method of Preparation. .341 
XXXVIIL— The Last Word— Wealth— Indepen- 
dence — Conclusion 352 

Index 359 



CULTURE BY SELF-HELP 



CHAPTER I. 

THE HOMES AND HAUNTS OF GENIUS. 

LEIGH HUNT used to go out of his way, even 
while very tired, in order to walk through Gold 
Street, where Dryden had lived, and thus give 
himself " the shadow of a pleasant thought." " I can 
no more pass through Westminster without thinking 
of Milton," he says, " or the Borough without think- 
of Chaucer and Shakespeare, or Gray's Inn with- 
out calling Bacon to mind, or Bloomsbury Square 
without Steele and Akenside, than I can prefer bricks 
and mortar to wit and poetry, or not see a beauty 
upon them beyond architecture, in the splendor of 
the recollection." Many others, themselves men of 
eminence, have looked upon the homes of genius 
in a similar spirit. " It is a sort of gratifica- 
tion," says Richard Cobden, writing from Burns's 
birthplace to his brother Frederick, " which I am sure 
you can imagine, but which I cannot describe, to 
feel conscious of treading upon the same spot of earth. 



s 



CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 



of viewing the same surrounding objects, and of being 
sheltered by the same roof, as one who equally aston- 
ished and delighted the world." 

There is perhaps no finer trait in the character of a 
young man than this interest in and regard for all that 
pertains to a great man ; for it indicates a noble soul, 
capable of high things. Besides, something of the very- 
air and spirit of a noble life are apt to be caught in con- 
templating the place and the surroundings of its origin. 
Histories may be read in houses, walls, streets, as well 
as in books; and I am inclined to think that most 
young men of generous nature, especially those who 
have devoted some time to the study of literature, 
would, under like circumstances, be inspired with feel- 
ings similar to those of Hunt and Cobden. "Superior 
souls, " says Mr. Alger, "find nothing else in the universe 
so attractive as a superior soul. " Even the ground they 
tread on, and the air they breathe, become consecrated 
to those who are familiar with their life and work. 

There is a season, in the life of every young man who 
has enjoyed some degree of culture, when the men who 
have "astonished and delighted the world" exercise an 
irresistible fascination over him. Then the lives and 
works of the heroes of art and literature, their struggles 
and triumphs, are regarded with intense interest, and 
their words are quoted at every turn. Who has not 
known the young enthusiast brimful of Shakespeare, 
Scott, or Schiller? Who has not known the youthful 
admirer of Michael Angelo, of Hogarth, or Thorwaldsen 
ready to sacrifice everything to be able to visit the 
homes of these great geniuses ! It is in this season that 
a visit to the home or birthplace of genius becomes a 
source not only of exquisite pleasure, but of the highest 



THE HOMES AND HAUNTS OF GENIUS. 9 

culture. For the daily walks and common surroundings 
of finely-touched spirits speak to him in a "various 
language," and enable him to catch a glimpse of those 
secret springs of thought, those "obstinate questionings 
of sense and outward things," which were perhaps the 
inspiring causes of many a noble, many a grand con- 
ception. To see Europe, therefore, at such a life-season, 
is, to an American, as good as a liberal education ; and 
happy is he who can accomplish it. 

Well do I remennber how I, too, used to dream of mak- 
ing this trip to Europe, and of seeing those ancient towns 
and cities consecrated by their association with genius, 
with the lives and works of men and women of whom I 
had often read, and whose writings were still the conso- 
lation and the joy of my leisure hours. The realization 
of this dream I considered the most desirable thing in 
the world, and lived in delightful anticipation of it. By 
the course of my reading I had become familiar with 
the haunts of Steele and Addison, of Dryden and Pope, 
of Johnson and Burke, of Lamb, Coleridge and Hood, 
and I longed to see them with my own eyes. I knew 
the schools they studied in, the streets they walked in, 
the houses they lived in, and the inns and coffee-houses 
they most frequently visited ; in fact, that centre of all 
that is consecrated to genius, world-famous London, 
was as familiar to me as New York or Boston. I used 
to wander in imagination through Fleet street and the 
Strand, where Johnson and Savage walked all night for 
want of a bed ; through the poet's corner in Westminster 
Abbey, where so many famous and beloved poets are 
now enshrined in marble effigies ; through the halls of 
parliament, where Fox, Pitt, Burke and Sheridan so 
often shone in all the splendor of eloquence ; through 



lO CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

the ill-omened and thick-walled Tower, where Raleigh, 
Surrey, and so many other gifted and heroic souls 
suffered for truth or liberty ; through the rooms of the 
Boar's Head and the Mermaid Tavern, where Shake- 
speare, Ben Jonson, and Francis Beaumont were wont 
to have their merry meetings and their wit combats ; 
and I imagined I saw these famous poets in their old 
smoky, candle-lit dens, discussing poetry, art and 
politics over their flowing cups, and leaving behind 
them an intellectual air 

Which alone 
Was able to make the next two companies 
Right witty. 

How swiftly and cheaply we can travel in imagina- 
tion ! how completely free from all annoying circum- 
stances ! and how pleasing and interesting everything 
looks to us ! What a pleasant ride was that from 
London to Stratford, in an old-fashioned stage-coach, 
with jolly companions and a good-natured, garrulous 
old Jehu, who cracked his whip and blew his horn at 
every stopping-place! Every striking object on the 
road I marked as things on which the eye of Shake- 
speare might have rested; and stopped of course at 
Bucks, where he "took the humor of the constable in 
' Much Ado About Nothing, ' which is on the road from 
London to Stratford. " After feasting my eyes on every- 
thing in that ancient little town of Stratford, in which 
the poet was born and bred, and in which he passed his 
declining years ; after reverentially examining that 
sacred little cottage in Henley street, still carefully pre- 
served, in which his youthful years were passed, and in 
which he must have learned, especially from his gentle 
mother, those lessons of filial love and devotion which 



THE HOMES AND HAUNTS OF GENIUS. II 

he subsequently turned to so good account, I strolled 
through the surrounding fields and forests, and, like 
Orlando, passed a golden day- 
Chewing the food of sweet and bitter fancy. 

Then "a. change came o'er the spirit of my dream," 
and I found myself in Paris, chasing all manner of 
fancies up and down those streets rendered famous by 
great historical events, and hallowed by the genius of 
Moliere, Corneille, Racine, Bossuet, Voltaire and 
F6nelon. After wandering through the scenes of their 
greatest triumphs, and looking with reverence on those 
splendid temples in which their eloquence and genius 
were first displayed, I strolled into the less frequented 
streets, and found old houses with such inscriptions as 
these: "Ici naquit Moliere;" "Voici la demeure de 
Lafontaine. " 

After this I sped away to Germany, that land of 
poetry and romance, where some of the most fascina- 
ting characters in history and literature have lived, and 
where some of the most romantic and 4:ale-haunted 
spots on earth are situated ; and here I saw, not only 
the grand scenery of the Rhine, with its historic castles 
and legendary towers, but Cologne with its narrow 
streets and marvellously beautiful cathedral, Mayence 
with its famous fortifications and its time-worn statues 
of Faust and Gutenberg, Weimar and Jena with their 
interesting memorials of Schiller and Goethe, and 
Leipsic with its many associations of Lessing and 
Richter. In all these places I saw in imagination not 
only the streets and houses in which these great men 
lived and moved, but the very rooms in which they 
studied, the books they used, the gardens in which they 
walked, and the convivial resorts in which they so fre- 



12 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

quently "set the table on a roar." Among the students 
of the universities I conjured up a new generation of 
Lessings, Schillers, Koerners, Gbethes and Richters, all 
animated by the fire of genius, sparkling with wit and 
humor, and brimful of the newest ideas on art, litera- 
ture and science; and with these I passed such dis- 
putatious days and convivial nights that I subsequently 
exclaimed with Cowley : 

We spent them not in toys, in lusts, or wine, 

But search of deep philosophy, 

Wit, eloquence and poesy ; 
Arts which I loved ; for they, my friends, were thine. 

While still young, I was fortunate enough, after ten 
years of hard, unremitting toil, to realize my dream to a 
certain extent. I crossed the great ocean ; saw the 
homes of my ancestors ; lived for months in London, 
Paris, Munich and Frankfort ; roamed through the cities 
consecrated by the genius of Shakespeare, Burns, Mol- 
iere, Kaulbach and Goethe; spoke with their country- 
men in their native tongue, saw their plays performed 
and their pictures exhibited on their native soil, and ate 
and drank and talked with the people by whom they 
had been surrounded. When I came into the city of 
Frankfort I thought little of the circumstance that it was 
the historic city in which Charlemagne convened his 
councils, or in which the German emperors were 
crowned; I thought only of the fact that it was the 
home and birthplace of Germany's greatest poet, the 
city in which Goethe was born and bred, and in which 
his youth and early manhood were passed, and a hun- 
dred things in his life and writings came up at sight of 
the place. These are the streets and the scenes, thought 
I, with which the poet was familiar; these are the 



THE HOMES AND HAUNTS OF GENIUS. 1 3 

houses, the squares, the gardens which his eyes rested 
on ; this is the city in which he conceived and worked 
out so many marvellously beautiful productions ; this is 
the country where Marguerite and Faust, Egmont and 
Clarchen, Wilhelm Meister and Mignon, and all the in- 
teresting characters of "Hermann and Dorothea" lived 
and had their being, and I imagined I saw their types 
among the people by whom I was surrounded. The 
recollection of the sayings and doings of these ever- 
living characters rendered every spot I trod on en- 
chanted ground, and I now thought I could realize the 
truth of Goethe's own remarkable declaration : 

He who the poet's speech •would understand, 
Himself must go into the poet's land. 

What added, too, not a little to the fascination of the 
place was the fact that I found the house in which the 
poet was born and bred still standing just as he left it, 
with many of his manuscripts, pictures, drawings, 
books and articles of furniture still remaining therein 
and open to the inspection of strangers. What a thrill 
of pleasure the sight of these things gave me ! Through 
the kindness of my lamented and ever-valued friend. Dr. 
Wittstock, I was invited to the annual dinner in com- 
memoration of the poet's birthday, where I became a 
participant in the finest "feast of reason and flow of 
soul" I ever enjoyed, and heard the wittiest, most fasci- 
nating speaker I ever heard. I have forgotten his name 
(it was something like Conweg), but remember he was 
a Mayence physician, and that the dinner was at the 
"Englischen Hof," and presided over by Dr. Volger. 

Schiller's birthplace I did not see, although I passed a 
week at Stuttgart, which is not far from Marbach, where 
the house in which he was born is still standing, with a 



14 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

tablet over the door commemorating that event. '"Tis 
true, 'tis pity; and pity 'tis, 'tis true," I was within a 
mile of Marbach town, and could have seen where the 
gentle dramatic poet was born and where he passed his 
early years ; but circumstances, or perhaps that feeling 
of indifference which is bred of much sight-seeing, 
prevented me from doing so, and I have ever since 
regretted that I did not avail myself of the opportunity. 

Those places and objects which I did see, however, 
made such a favorable impression upon me that I still 
remember them with pleasure, and I am now glad that 
my youthful curiosity was to some extent gratified. 
For before settling down to the serious work of life, or 
becoming tied by business or family cares, it is good to 
see something of the great world, otherwise one is apt 
to hanker all his life after that which it is impossible 
to gratify. 

I have always admired the English practice of send- 
ing the university student, after the completion of his 
studies, on a tour of the Continent, to see the most 
famous persons, places and things at his command, and 
to become acquainted with the habits and manners of 
the best society abroad. Lord Chesterfield's son, who 
had had such fine opportunities of this kind, I had often 
envied ; and although I could not travel in the comfort- 
able way in which this young gentleman travelled, nor 
enjoy half the advantages he enjoyed, I determined to 
see the Continent in the best way I could. I remem- 
bered that Goldsmith had travelled over a great part 
of France and Italy with nothing but his flute and his 
wits to aid him ; and that Bayard Taylor had gone over 
a great part of Europe on foot, with nothing but his 
scanty earnings as a newspaper correspondent to sup- 



THE HOMES AND HAUNTS OF GENIUS. 1 5 

port him; and I thought that, with a knowledge of 
three languages and skill in one of the mechanic arts, I 
might imitate their example without any apprehensions 
of failure. I had the youthful confidence of Wilhelm 
Meister, and, like him, thought that 

'Tis in truth for wand'ring in it, 

That the world was made so wide! 

After a long sojourn in England, I wandered into 
France, where I became a teacher of languages, and 
succeeded so well that, after a year's experience, I ven- 
tured into Germany in the same capacity, and found 
life so pleasant and my new profession so profitable 
that I remained almost as many years in Germany as I 
had at first intended to stay months. It was here that 
I learnt what teaching means, and what may be done 
in the way of study ; and it was here that I first tasted 
the sweets of leisure and culture. 

I had, before setting out on my travels, devoted some 
time to the study of the French and German languages, 
and had read something of the lives and writings of 
half a dozen well known French and German writers. ^^ 
Besides the plays of Racine, Moliere and Corneille, I^'^^^*.,^ 
had read Pension's "T616maque," Voltaire's "Charles 
XII.," Le Sage's "Gil Bias," and Bernardin de Saint 
Pierre's "Paul et Virginie. " I knew something of the 
lives of Schiller and Goethe — especially through Carlyle's <__, 
essays and his charming biography of Schiller — some- 
thing of Jean Paul Richter, of Lessing and of Martin 
Luther ; and with this marvellous stock of knowledge I 
considered myself equipped for any emergency. I had 
the buoyant confidence of youth, and, with such exten- 
sive accomplishments, I thought I could go far and see 
much. Moreover, I innocently imagined that a resi- 



l6 CULTURE BV SELF-HELP. 

dence in the towns in which these great men had Hved 
and labored, and a sight of the scenes on which their 
eyes had rested, would, somehow, influence my mind 
in such a way as to give me a tinge of the genius 
which characterized them, or a spark of the fire which 
animated them. 

These were foolish feelings, no doubt ; but they were 
those of a youth looking toward noble things ; and if 
Macaulay was not ashamed of his early idolatry of 
Milton, nor of the fond feelings with which he would 
have tended on him had he been his contemporary, so 
need I not be ashamed of my early worship of liter- 
ary heroes, nor of the dreams which I cherished con- 
cerning their lives, homes and haunts.* 

* " I am so convinced," says Lord Byron, " of the advan- 
tages of looking at mankind, instead of reading about them, 
and of the bitter effects of staying at home with all the nar- 
row prejudices of an islander, that I think there should be 
a law compelling us to send all our young men abroad for 
a time, among the few allies our wars have left us." 

" Beneath the rancor of races," said Zola before a meeting 
of literary men in London, " beneath the accidental hatred of 
peoples, beneath the interests, the jealousies and the violence 
which overthrow empires and republics, there exists a peace- 
ful kingdom, vaster than the most vast, immense because it 
includes them all — the kingdom of human intelligence, of 
art and letters throughout the universe — humanity. It is in 
this illimitable kingdom that our Moliere and our Corneille 
give the hand to your Shakespeare; it is here that great 
men, from the furthest age down to our own day, meet and 
fraternize — ^the Homers, the Virgils, the Cervantes, the Byrons, 
the Goethes, and the Victor Hugos." 



CHAPTER II. 



CHOOSING A PROFESSION HOW MEN FIND OUT 

WHERE THEIR TALENT LIES. 

MANY young- persons are in an uncertain state of 
mind as to the nature and extent of their natural 
abilities, and on this account find it difficult to 
fix upon the profession or calling which they are to fol- 
low for life. This feeling is by no means unnatural ; it 
is the struggle of youth toward manhood and maturity. 
Only prodigies know from the start what they are best 
able to do. The mental powers of every young per- 
son, no matter how situated, are in constant process of 
development, and it is only after a certain stage of 
this development that one can plainly see wherein his 
strength lies. Sometimes a man tries two or three 
professions before he comes to see which is his proper 
one, or the career for which he is best fitted. This 
happens not only with men of ordinary, but with 
men of extraordinary ability. Daniel Defoe was a 
trader, a soldier, a merchant, a secretary, a factory 
manager, a commissioner's accountant, an envoy, 
and what not, before he became an author, in which 
profession he had the greatest success because it was 



1 8 CULTURE BY SELF-HELl>. 

that for which he had the greatest talent. And even 
in this profession he went on improving and devel- 
oping his talent; for he wrote a cart-load of books 
before he wrote " Robinson Crusoe." Wilson, the 
ornithologist, went through a bitter experience in five 
different professions before he became a student ot 
ornithology, in which he not only found the greatest 
happiness of his life, but rendered invaluable service, 
to the science of natural history. 

Sometimes a fortunate accident reveals the sphere 
wherein one can succeed. " Most men," says Saint 
Real, " are like plants ; they possess properties which 
chance discovers." A New York paper lately pub- 
lished an account of the career of six successful theat- 
rical managers, all of whom came to their work by 
accidental circumstances. They saw their opportunity 
and took advantage of it. Let me mention one or two 
examples in other careers. Thomas Erskine, the fa- 
mous advocate, first entered the navy, in which he 
spent four years; but finding promotion not suffi- 
ciently rapid, he entered the army, in which he served 
for two or three years, when his regiment happened 
to be quartered in a town in which the assizes were 
held. Sauntering into court one day, he was invited 
to a seat on the bench by the presiding judge, who 
happened to know him; and, while listening to the 
pleaders at the bar, he was told that they were at 
the top of their profession. He began taking their 
measure, and he made up his mind that he could do 
at least as well as they did, and immediately began 
the study of law. The world knows the result. Lord 
Erskine became lord chancellor, the defender of Queen 
Caroline, the greatest forensic orator that Britain has 
known. 



CHOOSING A PROFESSION, 1 9 

A man may be a born merchant, as well as a born 
poet or orator ; and this, too, is sometimes discovered 
by accident. Mr. A. T. Stewart, the millionaire mer- 
chant, was educated for the church, which he left for 
the schoolmaster's desk, and, by the merest accident, 
found that his real talent fitted him for the shop- 
keeper's counter. "He greeted me cordially," says 
the Rev. John Miller, in The Independent, "and told 
me that he was designed for my profession; that 
what Greek and Latin he knew was for that pur- 
pose; that his early manhood had no other end in 
view; but that an old uncle had told him that a 
'call' was necessary, and had described it in such a 
way that he recognized he had received no such 
thing, and felt driven to the choice of the humbler 
and less interesting work of a professional school 
teacher. This it was that brought him to the States. 
His merchant's life was an afterthought. And I learned 
how this came. He had a small pittance above his 
expense. He lent it to a passenger, a young man 
whom he had known in Ireland, who was to be a 
merchant. Stewart's loan of seventy-eight dollars 
helped to set him up. And, in a small shop of the 
city of that day, he strove hard to succeed; but 
finding that he was about to fail, he persuaded his 
friend Stewart to quit his school-teaching and take 
the shop, as the only means of making sure his 
money. It was in this way that Stewart made the 
discovery of his gift as a merchant. " 

Jonas Chickering was originally a cabinet-maker. 
Happening to see a piano in a New England town, 
he felt a strong curiosity to ascertain the secret of 
its structure. "It was the only one in town," says 



20 CULTURE BY SELi'-HELP. 

Mr. Endicott, "and so sadly out of tune as to be 
almost useless ; but he closely inspected it, took it to 
pieces, discovered its defects, repaired it, and made it 
fit for use. This incident, trivial except as a mark of 
genius, had a decisive influence over his destiny. It 
begot a purpose in his heart to become something 
more than a journeyman cabinet-maker. In its result, 
it transformed him from a cabinet-maker into a dis- 
tinguished manufacturer of pianos." He became a 
millionaire, and the owner and director of an estab- 
lishment that turned out thirty pianos a week. 

Most young men have little to do with the choice of 
the profession in which they find themselves. Their 
parents or guardians choose for them ; and these often 
choose, not so much with a view to their fitness for 
the profession, as to its profitableness or prospective 
advantages. This is, of course, a matter of prime 
importance; but if inward peace and true profit are 
looked to, it will be found that a modest income in a 
congenial profession is preferable by far to the most 
brilliant pecuniary success in one of a contrary nature. 

With those young men who have their professions 
thus chosen for them, one of two things happens : 
either they plod on for life in a mediocre way in the 
arena in which they are placed, or if they have talent, 
energy and character, they push forward to eminence 
in their profession, or in some other profession which 
they like better, and take their place among men of 
mark. A man of genius, no matter where placed, 
grows into fitness for his proper sphere. He cuts 
out a career for himself, in spite of all obstacles or 
opposition; while his companions jog on in the rut 
in which they were placed by others. The Hon. 



CHOOSING A PROFESSION. 21 

Jonathan Chace, United States Senator from Rhode 
Island, displayed in his youth a great fondness for 
study and books, and one day he told his father that 
he was almost ready for college. "Jonathan," replied 
the old man, who was a money-making Quaker, "thou 
shalt go down to the machine-shop on Monday morn- 
ing." And to the machine-shop he went, where he 
remained for many years before he broke loose, and 
worked his way up to that sphere of life for which 
his talents fitted him. He became one of the leading 
men in the Senate. 

Mr. E. C. Stedman, in speaking of the facility with, 
which Oliver Wendell Holmes composed his festive 
and society verses, says that "what one does easily 
is apt to be his forte." True; and I might add, that 
what one likes to do is apt to be his forte. Those 
scholars who take more willingly to one study than 
to another may find therein an indication where their 
talent lies. The wise Shakespeare says : 

No profit grows where is no pleasure ta'en ; 
In brief, sir, study what you most affect. 

This, therefore, Inclination, is the safest guide to 
the path in which you are most likely to succeed. 
What a youth takes a fancy to he is likely to have a 
talent for; and if he perseveres in it and makes 
progress in it, his talent is confirmed. I know there 
are some persons who, because they take a fancy to 
a certain line of work, devote themselves to it with- 
out ever attaining any degree of excellence in it ; 
but these are people who have more zeal than judg- 
ment, or more vanity than either. They are weak 
in some part of their mental make-up. You may be 
sure it is not so much the love of the work itself 



2i CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

that animates or attracts them as the material advan- 
tages or the honor and fame they expect to derive 
from it. 

Now the true artist pursues his work without a 
thought of anything but excellence in the execution 
of it or the benefit to be conferred by it. Love of 
fame, "the last infirmity of noble minds," he may 
indeed possess; but no visions of rank or power ever 
formed the mainspring of the exertions of a man of 
genius, or supplied the inspiration by which he pro- 
duced his work. Some may point to Dean Swift as 
an exception, but he was an exceptional man in many 
respects. Swift declared that all his endeavors to dis- 
tinguish himself "were only to secure a great title 
and fortune, that he might be treated like a lord by 
those who had an opinion of his parts." This was 
his object at one, time; but I am sure that when he was 
writing "Gulliver's Travels," or the "Tale of a Tub," 
his delight in his work and his keen anticipation of 
its effect were far stronger impelling powers than any 
anticipations of profit or power to be derived from it. 

A youth of twelve years, who had played skilfully 
on the piano, once said to Mozart: " Herr Capellmeis- 
ter, I should like to compose something ; how shall I 
begin.?" " Pooh, pooh," said the great composer, "you 
must wait." "But you began when you were younger 
than I am." "Yes, so I did," said he; "but I never 
asked anything about it. When one has the spirit of a 
composer, he writes because he can't help it." 

There Mozart struck the keynote to genius. One 
who has the ability to accomplish something in art 
does not need to ask how to begin ; nature teaches 
him how to begin. He takes to it because he can- 



CHOOSING A PROFESSION. 2$ 

not help it, as naturally as a duck takes to water. 
It is his dehght to do this thing- and no other ; and this 
he does for the sake of the work itself, not for what 
advantage he may get out of it. Even the practical 
philosopher, the investigator of natural phenomena, 
does not pursue his investigations for the sake of the 
honor or profit he may get out of them ; nor even for 
the benefit of mankind, which is a noble motive in 
itself; but for the sake of knowing, of finding out, of 
discovering what was not known before : he investi- 
gates because he cannot help it. "That which stirs 
his pulse," says Mr. Huxley, "is the love of knowledge, 
and the joy of the discovery of those things sung by 
the old poets, the supreme delight of extending the 
realm of law and order ever farther towards the unat- 
tainable goals of the infinitely great and the infinitely 
small, between which our little race of life is run. 
.... Nothing great in science has ever been done 
by men, whatever their power, in whom the divine 
afflatus of the truthseeker was wanting." 

This being the case, why should any young person 
be prevented from busying himself in any harmless way 
that amuses him ? Why should he be told that it is 
useless or foolish ? Let him alone ; he is developing 
his talent, struggling toward light and knowledge ; and 
when these come he will know what to do. 



CHAPTER III. 



WHAT GENIUS IS — THE LATE DISCUSSION CONCERNING IT. 

THERE has lately been carried on in our period- 
ical press a remarkable discussion concerning 
the reality of genius, a discussion in which it was 
gravely questioned whether it is a thing that has an 
existence or not, or whether it is merely a name. 
This discussion was, I believe, started by Mr. Howells, 
the novelist, in one of his monthly utterances in 
Harper's Magazine, in which he expressed some rad- 
ical notions not only concernmg genius, but concern- 
ing the aims and methods of men of genius generally. 
Mr. Howells is a realist, and does not believe in 
any fiction except that which is copied directly from 
life ; he is a worker, and does not believe in any 
inspiration except that of work. "There is no genius," 
he says ; ' ' there is only the mastery that comes to 
natural aptitude from the hardest study of any art or 
science. " 

Well, after all, there is nothing wonderful in this 
statement ; it sounds very much like what has been 
said before. Is it any more remarkable than Carlyle's 
definition of genius as "an extraordinary faculty of 
taking pains," or John Foster's, "the power of lighting 



WHAT GENIUS IS. 25 

one's own fire ? " Hogarth said, "I know no such thing 
as genius : genius is nothing but labor and diligence. " 
The truth is, all men of genius have been workers, hard 
workers, and have done what they have done mostly 
by work. But this alone would not have been enough. 
There is something else required, without which all 
the labor in the world is in vain. How many workers, 
great workers, there have been in literature and art 
who have piled up mountains of books and pictures 
and poems, all of which, with their authors, have long 
since been forgotten ! They failed to possess that one 
spark that keeps every work of art alive. They cer- 
tainly had that "mastery that comes to natural apti- 
tude from the hardest study of any art or science ; '' but 
they had nothing more. Go into any great library, 
and see what countless volumes of these great workers 
are buried in dust and oblivion. The proof of genius 
is the living spirit. "Talent is the god of the present; 
genius the god of ages," says Lebrun. Though time 
sweeps into oblivion myriads of works of all kinds, 
it is unable to destroy that which is animated by the 
fire of genius. 

Genius and labor are co-workers, and indispensable 
to each other. Labor can do much without genius; 
genius can do nothing without labor. Labor alone 
produces inferior work ; genius alone by no means 
the best. Genius is of divine, labor of human origin. 
Genius works unconsciously; labor consciously; and 
it is by the union of both that the best work is pro- 
duced. Genius alone rows a boat with one oar ; so 
does labor ; neither can make much headway alone ; 
but when both row together, the boat is driven forward 
in the most admirable manner. 



26 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

Mr. E. C, Stedman, in the Princeton Review, goes 
over the whole ground, showing that men have 
believed from time immemorial that genius is a natural 
gift, an inborn faculty, developed by study and cul- 
ture, and working in a sort of instinctive, uncon- 
scious way. The passage which he approvingly 
quotes from Edward Von Hartmann is, I think, about 
as good a statement of its nature as can be given : 
"Ordinary talent produces artificially by means of 
rational selection and combination, guided by aesthetic 
judgment. ... It may accomplish something excel- 
lent, but can never attain to anything great, . . . nor 
produce an original work. . . . Everything is still done 
with conscious choice ; there is wanting the divine 
frenzy, the vivifying breath of the unconscious. . . . 
Conscious combination may, in the course of time, be 
acquired by effort of the conscious will, by industry, 
perseverance and practice. The creations of genius 
are unwilled, passive conceptions ; they do not come 
with the word, but quite unexpectedly, as if fallen from 
heaven, on journeys, in the theatre, in conversation, 
everywhere when it is least expected, always suddenly 
and instantaneously." 

No sensible man will deny this ; for no man ever 
produced a work of genius at will, or merely because 
he wanted to. It is true that it is only the working 
geniuses that become known ; but it is not their work- 
ing power that inspires them. It is their genius that 
inspires their working power. Works of genius are 
inspirations ; but these inspirations come usually to 
those who have studied much, observed carefully, and 
practiced a good deal. They hardly ever come to 
lazy, indolent, careless people. Indeed, inspirations 



WHAT GENIUS IS. 27 

are useless to all but the workers ; for when an inspira- 
tion comes it must be warmly welcomed and instantly 
utilized, else it will perish like any other unregarded 
thought. James Watt hit upon the idea of his great 
invention, the missing link in the steam engine, sud- 
denly while walking through a park on a Sunday morn- 
ing ; but this was preceded and succeeded by intense 
study, by constant labor and deep thought, without 
which his genius would never have amounted to much. 

Not only does the conception come unsought, but 
the execution often runs in a line quite independent 
of the author. Sir Walter Scott could not himself tell, 
when he began a story, how it would turn out. He 
was led by a sort of divine influence into the right 
path, and this influence is especially favorable to those 
who have diligence, perseverance, ambition. Genius 
is a spirit that has no sympathy with indolence and 
sloth. She may exhibit herself in a hundred ways in a 
hundred different characters ; but never to the care- 
less idler. 

Furthermore, genius is the power of being able to see 
in common things what ordinary people cannot see in 
them ; it is the power of being able to penetrate to the 
heart of men and things, and pluck out their mystery. 
This was Shakespeare's power, or one of his powers : 
he could see through men's words and looks into the 
inner workings of their hearts. Could any amount of 
labor, or of mere talent, procure him this power ? 

De Quincey makes a fine distinction between tlie 
works of genius and of talent. He says that all litera- 
ture may be divided into two branches, the literature 
of know/edge and the literature of power ; that the 
office of the former is to teach, and of the latter 



28 CULtURE BY SELF-HELP. 

to move ; and that the former is bound, in the natmai 
course of things, to fall into oblivion, while the latter 
will last as long as the language lasts. I think this 
is a true distinction. I know that I come into the 
former category myself; but I do not care; for no man 
can make himself a man of genius, and if I succeed 
in teaching something useful, I am satisfied. Oblivion 
overtakes vis all finally. Let the reader call to mind 
those authors whose works have moved and elevated 
him, touched springs that have raised him to a higher 
level in life, and then compare them with those which 
have merely informed or instructed him*, and he will 
perceive the justice of this distinction. 

Max Nordau makes another distinction between 
genius and talent which will, I think, make the dif- 
ference perfectly clear. I translate from his book 
entitled " Paradoxe : " 

"What is talent.? What is genius.? The answer to 
this question consists usually of indefinite phrases, 
in which nouns that express admiration and adjec- 
tives that express laudation predominate. With such 
an answer we are not satisfied. We do not want 
complimentary phrases, but a plain, sober definition. 
Well, I do not think we are far from the truth when 
we say : That one having talent is a creature who 
can perform the common activities of life better than 
the majority of those who perform them, or who en- 
deavor to learn how to perform them ; and that a 
genius is a person who discovers new activities never 
practiced before, or who practices or performs old 
activities after a method quite peculiar to and original 
with himself. I purposely define talent as the attribute 
of a creature, and genius as the attribute of a person. 



WHAT GENIUS IS. ' 29 

For talent does not seem to me to be limited to 
humanity. It is found also in the animal kingdom. 
A poodle that can be trained to perform cleverer tricks 
than any other dog has talent; also a robin or a 
blackbird that can sing better than his mates; per- 
haps even a pike that can hunt more successfully, 
or a fire-fly that can glow more brightly, than his 
comrades. Genius, on the other hand, is inconceivable 
among any beings except human beings, individual 
human beings. It is the attribute of that mdividual 
who, in popular language, breaks new paths, and dis- 
covers fields which were never trodden by any before 
him. That, as far as human observation goes, has 
never been done by a single animal." This definition 
has, to say the least, the merit of clearness, and, I 
think, of originality. 

Schopenhauer, on the other hand, has a very cu- 
rious conception of the value of works of genius. 
"Genius," says he, "produces no work of practical 
value. Music is composed ; poetry is conceived ; pic- 
tures are painted; but a work of genius is never a 
thing to use. Uselessness is its title of honor." 
Surely this must be intended in a Pickwickian sense. 
What ! is a poem or a picture which touches our 
hearts, or gives us higher conceptions of life, of no 
practical value? This, it seems to me, is the highest 
and noblest of all values. 

Now let me show by what a curious twist this 
word genius has come to its present meaning. Among 
the ancients every man was supposed to possess a 
daemon, or inward guiding spirit, which he was bound 
to obey, or suffer irreparable loss. This was called his 
genius. Those who implicitly obeyed this spirit, or 



30 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

genius, were the favorites of the gods, the prophetic 
souls who became the leaders and teachers of mankind. 
Hence nearly every man of uncommon intellectual 
power, ancient and modern, has attributed his best 
thoughts and best efforts to this spirit, or genius, 
this power beyond him, which inspires him to do or 
to say great things. And now, from being a spirit 
animating men and women, genius has come to mean 
a quality of mind possessed by them, and this quality, 
possessed to a certain extent by all men, is super- 
abundantly great and active in a favored few. 



CHAPTER IV. 



INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. 

I REMEMBER being struck by the remark of a French 
writer — I have forgotten his name — who declared 
that if, in reading a work of genius, one takes a 
deep interest in it, and feels in the reading of it some 
of the enthusiasm which the author must have felt 
in the writing of it, this is a proof that the reader 
possesses some of the spirit which created it, or a 
spirit similar to that of him who created it. This is, 
I think, a fair inference; it commends itself to the 
mind as a just conclusion; for every one naturally 
loves to associate with persons of his own cast of 
mind, and difference in degree is not difference in 
quality. "Tell me whom you admire," says Sainte 
Beuve, "and I will tell you what you are." Tell me 
what books you admire, and I will tell you what 
qualities of mind you possess ; imy, what qualities of 
heart, too; for your predilections in this respect are 
sure indications of moral as well as of mental quali- 
ties. Dante's sarcastic answer to the Prince of Verona 
was, after all, nothing but the statement of a simple 
truth. The prince asked him how he could account 
for the fact that in the household of princes the fool 



32 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

was in greater favor than the philosopher. "Simi- 
larity of mind," replied the poet, "is, the world over, 
the source of friendship. " 

When one of the common multitude happens to 
light upon a work of genius, he does not take that 
deep, abiding, affectionate interest in it which a kin- 
dred spirit takes in it. He does not, like such a spirit, 
fall in love with it; dote on it; dwell with rapture 
on its beauties ; return again and again to it, and 
see new beauties in it every time. He does not let 
it sink into his mind, and cause his whole intellectual 
being to be suffused by it ; he does not, like the kindred 
spirit, make it a seed-bed for a new crop of ideas. 
No ; his interest is something like that with which a 
peasant regards a marble statue, a fine edifice, or a 
masterpiece of painting; he sees it, admires it in a 
way, and passes on without remembering it; or if 
he does remember it, it is simply to say that he has 
seen and admired it. It does not abide with him, 
nor have any perceptible influence on his life or 
thought. "How often I have been struck at observ- 
ing," says John Foster, a shrewd observer of men, 
"that no effect at all is produced by the noblest works 
of genius on the habits of thought, the sentiment and 
talk of the generality of readers ! Their mental tone 
becomes no deeper, no mellower ; they are not equal 
to a fiddle, which improves by being repeatedly played 
upon." 

When I was in London I was introduced to a young 
New Yorker, just arrived, who ' wished to see the re- 
markable places of the English metropolis. I took 
him to the Abbey, the Parliament Houses, the Royal 
Academy, the Bank, the Exchange, the Kensington 



INDICATIONS OP GENIUS. 33 

Gardens, and other places ; and when he got through 
he exclaimed with an air of great satisfaction, "Now 
I can tell my friends in New York that I have seen 
these places !" That man was a fair sample of the 
multitude ; in fact, he was more intelligent than most 
of the multitude; but he was decidedly lacking in 
genius. He had no proper appreciation of the works 
of genius ; and I am sure he had as little appreci- 
ation of the speeches of Bright or Gladstone, or the 
pictures of Turner and Landseer, as he had of the 
splendid edifices in which they were delivered or ex- 
hibited. 

Nobody esteems high-mindedness more keenly than 
the high-minded ; and nobody esteems genius more 
highly than men of genius. None of the millions of 
Shakespeare's admirers have appreciated the poet so 
keenly and enthusiastically as Coleridge and Goethe, 
themselves among the greatest of poets. 

Whenever you find a man who never praises any- 
thing or anybody but in very moderate terms, you 
may be sure that he himself is a man of mediocre 
talents. Large appreciation and high admiration of 
excellence are generally indications of large powers 
and high talents in the appreciator or admirer. 

The man who loves, therefore, to associate with 
men of genius, either personally or in their printed 
works; who dotes on their masterpieces, and feels 
some of the enthusiasm in reading them which the 
author must have felt in writing them — such a man 
gives, by this very circumstance, presumptive evidence 
that he possesses genius. Emerson loved and studied 
Plutarch more than any other author except one ; and 
it is a significant fact that the portrait he drew of 



34 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

the famous biographer might, according to Oliver W. 
Holmes, have been set down for his own. 

"Then," somebody may say, "all those who appre- 
ciate Homer and Milton, Shakespeare and Scott, are 
men of genius." Well, so they are, to a certain ex- 
tent; for I believe that every man who understands 
and appreciates a work of genius possesses some 
genius, some sparks of the divine fire. All these ad- 
mirers of Homer and Milton, Shakespeare and Scott, 
who themselves produce nothing, have something of 
the spirit of these great masters ; something that cor- 
responds with or responds to what they find in their 
works. They find a picture of their minds in certain 
phases of their lives in these great masters ; a repro- 
duction of their own unexpressed thoughts, desires, 
longings, dreamings, and doubts, and they are de- 
lighted to see that others have thought, felt and 
dreamt such things as they have. What they are 
lacking in is the power of expression, the power of 
embodying their conceptions in some poetic or ar- 
tistic form. Renan says somewhere, that "the finest 
thoughts are those which have never been expressed ; " 
and perhaps these very admirers of the great masters 
have many such thoughts. That is just where genius 
comes into play; for only genius can give adequate 
expression to certain conceptions of the mind. Every 
man and woman, and especially every child, lives at 
times in a celestial region which few can describe ; a 
region such as that in which St. Paul found himself 
when he was taken up to heaven in a vision, and 
which he found he could not describe when he came 
down. Charles Dickens often lived in such regions, 
which he has shadowed forth in the thoughts of Little 



INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. 35 

Nell and other characters. Shelley used to run up to 
an infant, put his ear close to its lips, and listen with 
the expectation of hearing the language of the spheres 1 
Poor Shelley ! he no doubt had sometimes thoughts 
and visions which even his genius was inadequate to 
express. For 

Thought is deeper than all speech ; 

Feeling deeper than all thought ; 
Sonls to sonls can never teach 

What nnto themselves was taught. 

Now this lack of power to produce on the part of 
the admirers of genius may not be inherent, but pro- 
ceed from want of training, want of practice, want of 
special culture in a given direction. They have been 
compelled to devote their whole energies to the pro- 
duction of food, to the gaining of a living for them- 
selves and others, and thus certain powers of their 
minds have lain dormant and inactive. The poor 
souls have thus been denied the possession of a faculty 
which they have simply been unable to develop. Not 
that they could, under any circumstances, have be- 
come Homers, Miltons, Shakespeares and Scotts ; but 
they might possibly have done much finer work than 
they have done; they might possibly have equalled 
many clever men who have had greater advantages. 
The writer of this paper would certainly never have 
been able to write what he is now writing had he 
not in his youth been placed, accidentally or provi- 
dentially, at the trade of a printer instead of that of 
a shoemaker or carpenter. At this trade he became 
familiar with the expression of thought, which he 
would not have done had he been made a shoemaker 
or carpenter. So with thousands of others. We are 



$6 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

all largely the creatures of circumstance. Individuals 
make the same experience as nations ; for civilization 
did not begin until the Nile, by its fertilizing over- 
flowings, caused the earth to produce spontaneously 
abundance of food, and thus afforded men time to 
think, study, write, build, and acquire that "mastery 
that comes to natural aptitude from the hardest study 
of any art or science. " ^ 

I agree with Pope's famous dictum : 

Trne wit is nature to adyantage dressed ; 

What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed. 

Genius simply expresses what all men think, hope, 
or fear. And literary expression, like painting, sculp- 
ture, building, acting, drawing and so on, needs train- 
ing as well as natural capacity. Indeed all these are 
merely different modes of expression, for the works 
of all artists are but efforts to give expression to con- 
ceptions of the mind. The painter, the sculptor, the 
architect, the actor, are all striving to embody in 
some shape their conceptions of beauty, of dignity, 
of grandeur, or of misery. 

Listen to what the great master of expression says : 

The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, 

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to 

heaven ; 
And, as imagination bodies forth 
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen 
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothings 
A local habitation and a name. 

So that it is he whose pen, chisel, or brush "bodies 
forth the forms of things unknown," conceptions of 
beauty, grandeur, or misery, that proves himself a 
man of genius. "Shakespeare's great and peculiar 



INDICATIONS OF GENIUS. 37 

genius," says Richard Grant White, "was not the 
genius of observation, of study, of cogitation, of labor ; 
it was an intuitive, inborn knowledge of men and 
things in their elemental, eternal nature, and of their 
consequent relations, combined with an inborn faculty 
of expressing that knowledge such as has never been 
manifested in speech or writing by any other man 
known to history. And chiefly his genius lay in that 
power of expression. It is probable that many have 
approached him in his insight of man and nature; 
those who understand him and enjoy him must ap- 
proach him in this respect more or less remotely, or 
they would neither understand nor enjoy him." But 
none have approached him in expression. 



CHAPTER V. 



THE POWER OF EXPRESSION NEWSPAPER READING. 

TO me there is something profoundly sad in the 
early extinction of genius. I always think, on 
hearing of the early death of a man of genius, 
"What might not such a man have accomplished had 
he only lived! " and I go on imagining the great things 
he might have done. Few men of genius live long. 
The allotted years of the Psalmist are seldom allotted 
to them. The fire that is in them seems to bum 
them up sooner than that of other men ; and, un- 
happily, some of them seem unaccountably intent 
upon making this fire burn as fiercely as possible. 
What might not Mirabeau, or Burns, or Byron, have 
accomplished had they only husbanded the taper of 
life, instead of burning it at both ends ! 

One of the most recent of these early extinctions 
is that of the late Professor E. R. Sill, a man of rare 
powers and estimable character, whose papers on art 
and literature in the Atlantic Monthly are among the 
best things that I have read in recent years. Take 
a sample of his quality — a sample which bears directly 
upon the subject in hand, expression : 



THE POWER OF EXPRESSION. 39 

"We pass along a picture gallery, or turn the leaves 
of a volume of verse. As we pass before some paint- 
ing, or some poem, the question is. What does this 
give me? It may be that it gives the imagination 
some pretty image of nature. That is something. It 
may be that it gives the feeling also ; some touch of 
suggested peace or tranquility. That is more. But 
if it be a great picture, or a great poem, the whole 
spirit in us is quickened to renewed life. Not only 
our sense of color and form, our perception of har- 
monious relations, but our interest in some crisis of 
human destiny, our thought concerning this, a hun- 
dred mingled streams of fancy and reflection and 
will impulse, are set flowing in us ; because all this 
was present in the man of genius who produced the 
work, and because his expression of it there means 
the carrying of it over from his spirit into ours. If 
it be a work of the greatest rank, we are more, from 
hat moment and forever. [Consider the weighty 
meaning of these words, and how strongly it illus- 
trates the dignity of the artist's profession.] For out 
of the life the artist or poet has given us, will be 
born successive new accessions of life perpetually. 
The art of literature is the highest of the arts, because 
its power of expression is the greatest." The author 
of these words is dead; but his spirit, here and else- 
where, will live forever ! 

I have said that most men, the admirers of Homer 
and Milton, Shakespeare and Scott, possess some genius, 
some sparks of the divine fire. Most men, however, 
are not, unhappily, readers of classic literature. There 
are but few, comparatively, who read "the best that 
has been thought and said in the world." Mr. G. W, 



40 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

Curtis is said to have lost a fortune in an endeavor 
to bring out a series of first-class books. There is 
no great demand for such books. They are not the 
popular books. Glance at the class of works sold at 
the railway and ferry stations, and see what wretched 
stuff most of them are. Every exciting, sensational 
tale, all those low and vulgar things that appeal to 
the passions; these are the things that the multitude 
buy. They don't want to think; they want to be 
saved from thinking. Stop the first hundred persons 
you meet in the street, and ask them if they have 
ever read any work by Homer or Milton, Shakespeare 
or Scott, and I will wager a hundred to one that 
three-fourths of them will be found ignorant of every- 
thing but their names. I said three-fourths; I am 
afraid it would be nearer nine-tenths. Of the one 
million people in New York city, which is the centre 
of intelligence in America, it would perhaps be a 
liberal calculation to say that one-tenth, i. e., one 
hundred thousand persons, are readers of classic liter- 
ature. Let us hope, however, that there are so many ; 
for their influence is very great. These are they that 
have themselves some genius. These are Matthew 
Arnold's "remnant" — the choice spirits that lead the 
civilization of the world; the salt of every nation, 
who keep up its intellectual life, and prevent it 
from falling back into savagery. Cherishing those 
things that are good, noble and true, they believe 
rather in high thinking and poor living than in high 
living and poor thinking. 

The masses seldom read anything but newspapers, 
and the greater the rubbish these newspapers contain 
the greater their circulation. Fill a newspaper with 



THE POWER OF EXPRESSION. 41 

tittle-tattle about the private lives of individuals, and 
you will soon have a circulation. Fill it with high 
thoughts and noble views of life, and ten to one but it 
will soon die. • 

Talk with the man who reads nothing but news- 
papers, and you will be sure to find him a man of 
scrappy, second-hand knowledge. He is "a snapper- 
up of unconsidered trifles," with no comprehensive 
knowledge of anything. Not only are his views 
superficial, his reasoning illogical, his information in- 
accurate and his conversation unedifying, but the 
entire man is of a common, earthy stamp, without 
any high ideal of life, without any noble motive for 
living. "The reading of newspapers," says Dr. Buck- 
ley, "is not work, and he who reads nothing but 
newspapers will, in a few years, be incapable of in- 
tellectual work." Think of that, ye devourers of our 
encyclopedic daily newspapers, and profit by it. This 
is a strong assertion, made by a remarkable man; 
but it is fortified by others, made by equally remark- 
able men. "The whole world," says Mr. Freeman 
Clarke, "rushes to the newspaper every morning to find 
out what has happened since yesterday ; and the mo- 
ment it finds out what has happened, it cares no more 
about it. This is a mental dissipation which takes away 
mental earnestness, and destroys all hearty interest in 
truth. It weakens the memory ; for the memory, like 
all other powers, is strengthened by exercise. We culti- 
vate our memory by remembering. But if we read, 
not intending to remember what we read, but expecting 
to forget it, then we cultivate the habit of forgetting." 
And Mr. Clarke thinks the memory of the nation is per- 
manently injured by this dissipation. Dr. Rush excluded 



42 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

from the Public Library which he founded at Philadelphia 
all newspapers, declaring^ them to be "the repositories 
of disjointed thinking." There is a saying of Mr. Dick, 
the Scotch geologist, which sticks to me. One day a 
gentleman called upon Mr. Dick, and was told that he 
could not see him just then. "Tell Mr. Dick," said the 
gentleman, "that I am the editor of so and so." The 
reply was, "I have no time for editors;" and (aside), 
"They only thresh straw a thousand times threshed." 

What, then, shall we not read the newspapers.? 
By all means ; but let us not confine ourselves to such 
reading. In the daily journals one should read the 
news, and that only, and form one's own opinions 
concerning it. That is what Mr. John Morley, who says 
himself that he has written more "leading articles" than 
any other man in England, recommended to an asso- 
ciation of young men. 

To be a man, one must take an interest in what is 
going on among men. This is current history, and is 
as well worth knowing as any other history. Wendell 
Phillips said that he who does not read the newspapers 
might as well live on an island all to himself, like 
Robinson Crusoe, for all the good he is. True ; but if 
he reads nothing but newspapers, he might as well live 
on a dung-hill, where everybody carts his garbage, for 
all the good he gets. 

The majority of men care as little about intellectual 
progress as the majority of children care about going 
to school. They want fun, not knowledge; and al- 
most the only chance of getting knowledge into their 
heads is by mixing it up with fun. It is too much 
trouble for them to study. They cannot sacrifice 
their ease or pleasure for such a thing. This is why 



THE POWER OP EXPRESSION. 43 

everything- is worked up in the shape of fiction now- 
adays ; the pill must be sugar-coated to get it down. 

How often I have seen young men lounging around 
in their places of business, doing nothing and think- 
ing about nothing, when, if they cared for knowledge, 
they might have improved this precious time by learn- 
ing something ! How many thousands there are who 
have two or three hours each day at their disposal, 
and yet never apply the time to any useful thing ! 
Most working people do the very same work, and 
talk in the very same way, at sixty, as they did at 
twenty. They can do only what they are told to do, 
or what they are compelled to do; they take no for- 
ward steps of their own volition. A certain amount 
of worldly wisdom they do indeed acquire; but no 
increase in power of performance, no increase in in- 
tellectual power. "Genius," says Coleridge, "is the 
faculty of growth. " They don't grow ; they stop 
when they get enough to live. I have just received 
a letter from a compositor who has been working 
for over thirty years at his trade ; and yet this man, 
after setting up correct sentences all these years, 
writes me now, "I thought you was in Germany!" 
Even among professional men, this stand-still nature 
is often seen. "I have known preachers," says John 
Foster, "who seemed as if they had slept for twenty 
years, and then awoke with the same intellectual 
stock which they had before they began their nap." 

One test of intellectual power is the sticking to a 
thing until you have mastered it. How few there are 
that stick to the study of a language, for instance, 
until they have learned it thoroughly ! I have never 
heard of any American, except Bayard Taylor, who had 



44 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

thoroughly mastered German. "The power of apply- 
ing attention, steady and undissipated, to a single 
object," says Lord Chesterfield, "is the sure mark of a 
superior mind. " Genius has been defined as the power 
of concentrating attention ; more properly, it might be 
called the power of keeping attention concentrated on 
a subject until you know all about it. This is too 
much trouble for the ordinary man. Mr. Joseph Payne, 
in his excellent Lectures on Education, says : ' ' The 
reason why savages remain savages is because they 
don't want to be civilized." How many savages of 
this kind we have in a civilized community ! 



CHAPTER VL 



HOW INTELLECTUAL POWER IS ACQUIRED — INSTRUCTIVE 

EXAMPLES. 

I KNOW no finer example of the difference between 
a youth of genius and an ordinary youth than that 
presented by the Hfe of Thomas Holcroft, the actor 
and author. He was born in London in 1745 and 
died in that city in 1809. While still a mere child 
he had to undergo the most extreme suffering as a 
peddler and hawker, being obliged to tramp with his 
father and mother around the country, driving loaded 
asses from place to place, animals that were as hard- 
worked and tired as himself. In this occupation he 
endured hunger, exposure, nakedness, fatigue and all 
the humiliations of poverty. Happening, in his twelfth 
year, to witness the races at Nottingham, and to 
get a sight of the stable-boys who took care of the 
horses, he was so strongly impressed by the contrast 
between his own wretched and ragged condition and 
that of these well-fed and handsomely- dressed boys, 
that he resolved to try and become one of them. 
Accordingly he made application to several of the 
turfmen for a position, but was repeatedly refused. 
After many rude rebuffs he succeeded at last, and 



46 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

secured a position under a kind master at Newmar- 
ket. He was not long in this service before he be- 
gan to distinguish himself as a rider, and his master 
was well pleased with him. He now enjoyed what 
he never knew before, good food, comfortable lodg- 
ing and handsome clothes. "I fed voluptuously," 
he says, "and not a prince on earth had half the 
appetite or a tenth of the relish I had for my meals. 
I was warmly clad, nay, gorgeously; for I had a 
handsome new livery, of which I was extremely 
proud, and never suspected there was disgrace in it. 
Instead of being obliged to drag through the dirt after 
the most sluggish, obstinate and despised of all our 
animals, I was mounted on the noblest animal that 
the earth contains, had him under my control, and 
was borne by him over hill and dale with the swift- 
ness of the wind. Was not this a change such as 
might excite reflection even in the mind of a boy?" 
With most boys this change would have excited ela- 
tion, but little reflection. Now mark the difference be- 
tween him and the other stable-boys who were his 
companions. In his leisure hours he read everything 
he could lay his hands on, and tried to learn all he 
could. He studied arithmetic, music, history, anything 
that offered a chance of improving his mind. After two 
years of this easy, luxurious jockey-life, he determined 
to quit it, for he had grown beyond it, and felt that he 
was capable of better things. "I finally became dis- 
gusted," he says, "with a life which offered none 
but material attractions, and determined to change it. 
I began to despise my companions for the grossness 
of their ideas, and for their total neglect of every pur- 
suit in which the mind had any share ; and they began 



HOW INTELLECTUAL POWER IS ACQUIRED. 47 

to despise me for the oddness of my pursuits and the 
little interest I took in theirs. My attempts to acquire 
some small portion of knowledge they regarded with 
sneers of contempt; and not one of them offered me 
any encouragement, either as prompter or rival." 

Like many others, he had to "come out from among 
them, " and walk his own way. Having grown beyond 
them, he could no longer endure their manner of liv- 
ing ; and when he left them he entered a sphere far 
higher than that of their masters. He became a 
teacher, writer, translator, actor and dramatist ; he spent 
his life in working out noble ideals; lived among the 
best spirits of his time, and produced some things 
which will keep his name fresh in remembrance for 
many a year to come. 

How few young men act like him ! Even among 
those who read, the great majority care for nothing but 
fiction. Now a love of fiction is no evidence of a desire 
for improvement. It is simply a craving for excite- 
ment, a desire for an easy and pleasing acquaintance 
with the wonderful adventures of other people. There 
is no exertion of the mind in such reading. It is all 
swa-Uow and no effort ; little better than devouring 
sweetmeats or drinking gin. A man who cares for 
nothing but stories has a mind like a bog, which swal- 
lows everything and returns nothing. He is the un- 
profitable servant who hides his talent in a napkin ; he 
is too lazy to take it out and make use of it; all he 
cares for is tranquillity and ease. 

"It is not talent that men lack," says Bulwer Lytton, 
"it is the will to labor; it is purpose, not the power 
to produce. " Those who fail are mere wishers ; those 
who succeed are wilier s. "The books that help us 



4o CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

most," says Theodore Parker, "are those that make us 
think most. " Few novels have this power ; only those 
of the masters have it. To him who reads nothing but 
novels, none of them have this power; he is never 
stirred into thought. He lives in the dreams of other 
people, and has none of his own. 

It is by mental work that one acquires' power : it is 
by making substantial acquirements in those studies that 
require exertion : in the mathematics, the languages, 
the sciences, history and general literature ; it is in 
working out hard problems and mastering the prin- 
ciples of any art or science that the mind gains power. 
A fondness for work is one of the indications of genius. 
There never lived a man of genius who was not charac- 
terized by a love of study. Study is the very life of his 
soul, that by which he lives. "The few books that 
came within his reach, " says Garfield, speaking of Lin- 
coln, "he devoured with the divine hunger of genius." 

This "divine hunger" I set down among the surest 
marks of genius. Except actual performance of work 
of superior character, there is no surer indication than 
this. It is the hidden germ struggling for light, life and 
expansion ; and these it will reach, unless some un- 
toward accident kill it. He who does not care for study 
proves by this very circumstanoie that he has no genius. 
He is made for other things. I have just read of a poor 
girl who, because she risked her life in saving a passen- 
ger train, was sent to a first-class school in Massachu- 
setts, where for two years the best teachers tried to 
train and develop her intellect. All in vain. Having 
no taste for study, she was beyond their reach. She 
had no intellect to train. Some are born for the kitchen 
as surely as others are born for the cabinet. A woman 



HOW INTELLECTUAL POWER IS ACQUIRED. 49 

may be a heroine, and yet possess but a small share 
of intellectual power. 

Wherever I find one eager and thirsting for knowl- 
edge, ambitious to excel and to make the most of his 
powers — wherever I find one who considers the world 
beautiful, interesting, and worth studying, always busy 
in observing the workings of nature, and in reflecting 
on what is going on around him, never for a moment 
finding time wearisome or thinking of such a thing as 
"killing time" — wherever I find one who, in the words 
of Milton, is "inflamed with the love of learning and 
the admiration of virtue, stirred up with high hopes 
of living to be a brave man and worthy citizen;" or, 
in the words of Byron, following 

The noble aspirations of his youth, 

To make his own the minds of other men, 

The enlighteners of nations — 

I feel confident that such a man, whatever his station 
or parentage, possesses genius, and that nothing but 
time and opportunity are required to enable him to dis- 
play it. His genius may, like a grain of mustard seed, 
be hardly perceptible at first; but, like the mustard 
seed, it will develop under a genial sky, and spread 
out larger than any other plant of the field. 

We often hear people advising young men to seek 
the society of superior people, men of ability and cul- 
ture. But it is of no use for them to seek such society 
if they do not feel any inclination for it; it is vain for 
them to seek it at the bidding of others. They would 
neither get nor give any benefit in such society. If the 
power is in them they will naturally gravitate toward 
such society, or draw it to them, just as a man of 
genius naturally gravitates toward those books that 



50 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

contain "the best that has been thought and said in the 
world. " For genius will aspire, will improve, will rise 
in spite of every obstacle. Study, thought, ideas, these 
are its life ; and wherever men of culture and ideas 
come together, there it finds itself at home. Das Gleiche 
kann nur vom Gleichen erkannt werden. And if it fail 
at first, it will keep on until it succeeds. Lord Chester- 
field, who became the type of a fine gentleman, tells 
how awkward, silent and shy he felt on first entering 
good society. After sitting dumb as a post for a long 
while, he plucked up courage enough to say to one of 
the noble ladies, "It is a fine day." "Yes, indeed it is," 
replied the lady, with a smile and a kindly look ; and 
she went on conversing with him until he gradually lost 
his shyness and talked with ease. This was the begin- 
ning of the man who became the most polished and 
accomplished gentleman in Europe. Even Henry Ward 
Beecher, who, of all men, seemed to have most liberty 
before an audience, was timid and uneasy at times. 
"Many a time," says his wife, "when going to speak 
on a subject of special interest which I greatly desired 
to hear, he would say, ' Oh ! don't go ! I am sure I 
am going to fail, and I don't want you to be present.' 
For several years I yielded to such a request, and, 
anxious and troubled lest he should fail, awaited his 
return. But he invariably came home cheerful, and 
would say, ' I had great liberty ; now I wish you had 
gone. The audience appeared greatly interested and 
very appreciative. They gave me great comfort and 
courage ; ' and he would appear happy and surprised. 
As I came to understand his moods better, I no longer 
feared any failure." 

It is the same in other fields. "It is in me, and it 



HOW INTELLECTUAL POWER IS ACQUIRED. $1 

will out," said Sheridan, on failing in his first effort to 
make a speech. "You will not listen to me," said Ben- 
jamin Disraeli to the House of Commons, on a similar 
occasion; "but the time will come when you shall 
listen to me." And each made his word good. Both 
these men of genius determined to go on studying and 
practicing until they succeeded. They knew that the 
power was in them ; that success depended on them- 
selves ; and they were determined to leave nothing 
undone to secure it. Charles O'Conor said it would 
have made no difference what profession he had 
adopted ; he would have attained about the same rela- 
tive success in any profession. That is the feeling of 
every man of true genius. 



CHAPTER VII. 



DOES POVERTY SMOTHER GENIUS? 

THE heroic soldier, Wolfe, thought so highly of 
Gray's "Elegy," that he declared he would rather 
be the author of it than the conqueror of Quebec ; 
and Daniel Webster, on hearing the poem read to him 
on his death-bed, said he would willingly exchange 
his fame as an orator for that of the poet who com- 
posed the Elegy. Beautiful as this poem is ; studded 
as it is with happy figures and natural sentiments, 
which appeal to the heart and mind of cultivated peo- 
ple more strongly perhaps than those of any other 
poem in our language; there is one passage in it 
which, as far as truth is concerned, is, in my opinion, 
of doubtful correctness : 

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid 

Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire — 
Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed, 

Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre : 
But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page, 

Eich with the spoils of Time, did ne'er nnroll ; 
Chill Penury repressed their noble rage 

And froze the genial current of the soul. 

This "noble rage" is not so easily repressed. Pen- 
ury alone will never extinguish the "celestial fire" of 



DOES POVERTY SMOTHER GENIUS? 53 

genius. An unhappy stroke of fate may kill it ; disease 
and death may annihilate it; but poverty, never. No 
man of genius, bom a clod-hopper, ever passed seventy 
years hopping over clods. In w^hatever rank or station 
he may be born, he is bound, if he live, to leave his 
mark on his age or country. 

My assertion that those who have no genius do not 
care to study, do not care to learn, implies vv^ith equal 
force that those who have genius do always care to 
study, do always care to learn ; and they generally 
succeed in making themselves known even under the 
most adverse circumstances. "A hero," says Kossuth, 
"is one who overcomes difficulties." So is a man of 
genius. Overcoming difficulties is the distinguishing 
mark of his character. If he has the "celestial fire" 
in him, he is bound to make it blaze and shed 
light and warmth on those around him. Take, for in- 
stance, the living artist, Mr. Daniel C. Beard, whose 
life I find thus described by a newspaper reporter : 

"Mr. Beard has had a curious life experience. He 
was in his youth a raftsman on the Mississippi. During 
the war he was a soldier, and served at one time on 
the staff of General Sherman. When he began to put 
his ideas on canvas, it was in the rudest way. There 
was little art in this country then, and especially in 
Cincinnati, where he was a resident. He prepared hjs 
own canvas; he made his own brushes, going to a 
farmer's and selecting the hair for that purpose. He 
told me the other day that from the time he began, in 
this primitive way, to paint, he never received instruc- 
tion of any kind from any one. 'In my work,' said he, 
' I did like Topsy, I just growed. ' Some of his paintings, 
especially the animal caricatures, are famous." 



54 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

Of course he "growed," as all men of genius g^row, 
who succeed in living. Yet it is probable that a man 
with wonderful powers of mind, suitable for extra- 
ordinary emergencies, may never bring his powers into 
play until these emergencies occur. Such, I suppose, 
was the genius of Grant and Marlborough. But this is 
not proven. Grant and Marlborough might have shown 
their powers in another field had they not become 
soldiers. 

I know there have been many unsuccessful great men, 
many noble and brilliant geniuses, who have fared ill at 
the hands of Fate ; but they were not suppressed by 
poverty. ' ' Chill Penury " never froze the ardor of their 
souls. 

Genius is a natural force which is bound to work 
as surely as grass grows or fire bums; but as the 
grass is sometimes burnt before it is grown, and the fire 
quenched before it is well lit, so are many noble spirits, 
by dire contending forces, often extinguished before 
they have well begun to live. "Some souls," says 
Richter, "fall from heaven like flowers; but ere the 
pure, fresh buds have had time to open, they are trod- 
den in the dust of the earth, and lie soiled and crushed 
beneath the foul tread of some brutal hoof." 

Some of the most brilliant men in history failed 
through circumstances beyond human control. Their 
history is simply an exemplification of the truth that 
the race is not always to the swift, nor the prize to 
the most worthy. Yet although they failed in the 
attainment of the objects they aimed at, their death 
simply cut them short in a career that would certainly 
have been glorious. Nay, it is often glorious as it is. 
They have left a brilliant example of heroic endeavor, 



DOES POVERTY SMOTHER GENIUS? 55 

"footprints which perhaps another" has observed with 
allurement and stimulus; and they have not lived in 
vain. 

Raleigh vi^as unsuccessful ; but he left a name that 
will forever be associated with heroic endeavor and 
noble character. Kossuth was unsuccessful ; but who 
will say that his patient and high-spirited career, his 
brilliant oratory and steadfast conduct, have been 
fruitless ? O'Connell was unsuccessful ; but who has 
left a more brilliant name as an orator, and a nobler 
name as a patriot and liberator? 

Even disease and "that fell sergeant Death" do not 
always conquer genius. The historian Green, though 
he knew that death would overtake him in a few weeks 
or months, kept on working until he completed what 
he had undertaken. Never was there a more striking 
example of the superiority of mind over body than in 
the case of this heroic spirit. His wife tells us that 
when he knew all hope was vain, and that death was 
a matter of a few weeks or months, he made up his 
mind to do his utmost to complete one of his histories 
before laying down his pen forever. "The way of 
success was closed, " says Mrs. Green ; ' ' the way of 
courageous effort still lay open. Touched with the 
spirit of that impassioned patriotism which animated 
all his powers, he believed that before he died some 
faithful work might be accomplished for those who 
should come after him; and at the moment of his 
greatest bodily weakness, when fear had deepened 
into the conviction that he had scarcely a few weeks 
to live, his decision was made. The old plans for 
work were taken out, and from these a new scheme 
was rapidly drawn up, in such a form that, if strength. 



56 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

lasted, it might be wrought into a continuous narra- 
tive ; while, if life failed, some finished part of it might 
be embodied in the earlier history. Thus, under the 
shadow of death, the 'Making of England' was begun, 
and during the five months in which it was written 
that shadow never lifted." Who will say that death 
conquered this indomitable spirit? Such an achieve- 
ment, greater than any triumph of genius, covers its 
author with imperishable glory. 

Genius is never lost : it will out, under the most ad- 
verse circumstances, even among the poorest, least cul- 
tivated people. I shall, in the next chapter, give you 
some examples of men in the very humblest station of 
life — the station which Gray had in view when he wrote 
his Elegy — examples of men who, in spite of the most 
complete poverty, in spite of apparently insurmount- 
able difficulties, succeeded in "unrolling the page of 
knowledge," in developing and giving vent to their 
genius, and in pushing their way up to eminence and 
fame. I might give you a hundred such examples ; 
nothing could be easier ; but two or three will suffice 
for my purpose. Samuel Smiles's books are full of 
them; in fact, Smiles is the Plutarch of poor men of 
genius. His works are more encouraging to struggling 
genius than those of any other author that I know. 

True genius hath electric power 

Which earth can never tame : 
Bright suns may scorch, and dark clouds lower, 

But never quench th' immortal flame. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



EXAMPLES OF GENIUS OVERCOMING DIFFICULTY. 

JOHN BROWN of Haddington, was born at Carpow, 
Scotland, in 1722. Losing both his parents at 
eleven years of age, he became assistant to a 
venerable shepherd named Ogilvie, who tended his 
flock on the neighboring hills. The boy showed a 
strong inclination for study, and Ogilvie encouraged 
him in his efforts to learn. While minding his flock, 
the young shepherd not only mastered the Greek and 
Latin languages, but acquired such large stores of 
knowledge in various branches, that the country peo- 
ple round about looked upon him as a young Doctor 
Faustus, in league with the devil. Besides vast stores 
of Calvinistic divinity and Biblical history, he acquired 
a knowledge of nine or ten languages, classical. Orien- 
tal, and modern ; of which knowledge, as we shall see, 
he subsequently made good use. Weary of the mo- 
notony of shepherd-life, and wishing to see the world, 
he became a peddler, and tramped over the whole 
country; then a soldier, and fought in the Rebellion of 
1745 ; then a schoolmaster, and studied divinity and 
general literature while teaching the humanities ; then 
a clergyman, and wrote a famous book, The Self- 
Interpreting Bible, while earnestly performing the du- 
ties of his sacred office. 



58 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

As a preacher and writer, Brown became one of the 
most popular men in Scotland ; and as a man, one of 
the most highly esteemed and sincerely loved. One 
story about him, which I heard when I was a very 
little boy, made an indellible impression on my mind. 
While still employed as a shepherd laddie, he had 
walked to St, Andrews, a distance of twenty miles, in 
his shepherd-dress, to buy a Greek Testament. He 
had been tramping all night, and doubtless looked 
somewhat rough and unkempt on entering the book- 
seller's shop. The bookseller, surprised at being asked 
for such a book by such a customer, began to make 
sport of him. Fortunately, one of the college profes- 
sors entered the shop at this moment, and the book- 
seller mentioned the strange request of the shepherd 
lad. Equally incredulous of the boy's acquirements, 
the professor said to him, ' ' Now, if you will read a 
verse of that Testament, and translate it to me, you 
shall have the book for nothing. " The shepherd lad- 
die took it up, read off and translated several verses 
with ease, and carried off his Greek Testament in tri- 
umph ! 

Valentine Duval was born in Champagne, France, 
in 1695. Losing his father at ten years of age, he 
earned a scanty living by herding geese and pulling 
weeds; then, when this failed, he determined to travel 
in search of employment. The only thing he knew 
of geography was that the sun rises in the east; and, 
imagining that the farther east he went the nearer to 
the sun he would come, and the warmer he would 
feel, he travelled steadily eastward. After walking 
for about one hundred and fifty miles, he came to 
the foot of the Vosges mountains, where he made the 



EXAMPLES OF GENIUS OVERCOMING DIFFICULTY. 59 

acquaintance of a farmer, who gave him his flocks 
to keep. Then, after a time, he pushed on, still east- 
ward; and finding himself, tow^ard the approach of 
night, in the middle of an unknown forest, he kept 
on till he came near the outskirts of the same, when, 
fortunately, he espied a little hut, which he found 
occupied by a hermit. This man, who had been 
a priest, perceiving the boy to be bright and in- 
telligent, offered to teach him to read and write, if 
he would stay with him. Valentine accepted the 
offer, and, after two or three months, found he had 
learned as much as his master could teach him. 
Then he went forward again, still eastward, and 
coming to a monastery in Lorraine, in which he 
had heard Learning had taken up her abode, he ap- 
plied for admission as a servant. The monks re- 
ceived him joyfully, and he contracted with them 
to herd sheep a certain number of hours every day 
in reward for food and clothing. When off duty, he 
hunted for wild cats and other fur-bearing animals in 
the mountains ; skinned his prey ; carried the skins to 
a neighboring town, where he sold them, and bought 
books with the proceeds. I fancy I see him, coming 
in, like a wild man of the woods, laden with skins ; and 
going off, like a man who had found a treasure, laden 
with books! This is what the "divine hunger" im- 
pelled him to do. 

One day, while herding his sheep on the hills, he 
spread out a map of the world on the grass ; and was 
leaning over it, trying to find out some spot of par- 
ticular interest, when a gentleman approached, looked 
at him with surprise, and asked him what he was 
doing. "Why, you see what I am doing; I am 



6o CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

studying geography." "What place are you looking 
for?" "I am looking for Quebec, where I hear 
there is a fine university." "Oh, there are univer- 
sities nearer hand than Quebec. Here it is." "What 
university do you refer to ? " " There is one in 
Strasbourg, for instance." Then the two got into a 
familiar chat about literature and kindred subjects; 
and by and by Valentine noticed that several other 
gentlemen had come up, and were listening with 
respectful attention to the words of his new ac- 
quaintance. He perceived, too, from the deferential 
manner in which these gentlemen addressed him, that 
he was a personage of rank ; and at last discovered that 
he was the prince of that country, Lorraine. Valen- 
tine wanted to beg pardon for the familiarity with 
which he had addressed him ; but the prince laughed, 
told him he liked his way of talking, and by his 
familiar and pleasant manner soon put him at his 
ease. This excellent prince took him in charge ; 
settled his contract with the monks ; sent him to 
school and to college ; made him his librarian ; trav- 
elled over Europe with him, and subsequently made 
him a college professor and keeper of the imperial 
medals at Vienna. Duval became a successful teacher 
and the author of several useful works. 

The following paragraphs are from Miss Frances E. 
Cooke's admirable short biography of Theodore Parker, 
who was born at Lexington, Mass., in 1810: 

"A country boy leaving school when he was eight 
years old ! Theodore Parker was this boy. How 
could he ever hope to become a great man ? We shall 

see how he managed to carry out his wish 

Each winter for three months, there was little work to 



EXAMPLES OF GENIUS OVERCOMING DIFFICULTY. 6 1 

be done on the farm. Then Theodore could go to 
school again. So through fierce snow-storms and bit- 
ing winds he crossed the fields each day, and was al- 
ways the best scholar in the Lexington school. When 
spring came, and he had to go back to work, the 
schoolmaster offered to lend him books, that he might 
study whenever he could. To this man, whose name 
is White, Theodore owed much, and he never forgot the 
debt. Dearly he loved the memory of this friend of his 
youth, and it was one of the happiest deeds of his life to 
be able, in later years, to help the orphan children of the 
man who had so greatly influenced his own boyhood. 

"So, in spring days, the farmer boy, as he guided 
his plough, said over to himself the lessons he had 
learned during the winter months at school, and when 
other workers lay sleeping during dinner-time under 
the shade of the trees, he read page after page of his 
schoolmaster's books, and learned new lessons. No 
odd moments were wasted. Early in the summer 
morning, and when the work was finished in the even- 
ing, Theodore found time to read, and his father often 
marvelled at the number of books he knew all about, 
of which he could give a clear account when asked. 

"But there was one book he could not borrow, and 
this he must have. It was a Latin dictionary. In 
some way he must get together money enough to buy 
it. But he would not ask his hard-working father for 
the money. What could he do? A bright thought 
came to his mind. Ripe whortleberries hung upon the 
bushes in the fields. These he might gather and sell, 
if he could only find time to do so. So, very early in 
the morning, before the sun had fairly risen, and while 
the heavy dew lay upon the grass and hedgerows, he 



62 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

sprang out of bed, and was out in the meadows, gath- 
ering berries, while other people still lay resting after 
the hard work of the previous day. In this way, The- 
odore gathered many bushels of whortleberries, which 
he sent to the Boston market, and yet he was able to 
begin his day's work when his father's workers came 
out on the farm. That Latin dictionary, when he got 
it, amply rewarded him for his toil ; for it was a pre- 
cious book to him. It was the first book he had 
earned for himself, and the first book of the large li- 
brary which he afterward, by degrees, gathered round 
him. Those hopeful days were, in later life, very 
pleasant days to look back upon, and while they lasted 
there was no happier boy in all that country-side than 
the youngest son of the millwright of Lexington. " 

One day Theodore asked his father for a holiday. 
He would not tell any one what it was for ; but his 
father knew he would make good use of it, and 
willingly granted it. Theodore rose very early that 
morning — it was in August — and walked along the 
dusty road to Boston, ten miles off, which he reached 
before the great heat of the day began. Not far 
from Boston is a long, red, brick building, with 
open fields and a long avenue of trees before it, 
called Harvard College. Here Theodore entered ; 
presented himself as a candidate for admission ; was 
placed among the other candidates ; and, at the 
close of the day, when the examination was over, 
he was declared successful. With a light heart he 
made his way home again ; and when, late in the 
evening, he told his father what he had done, the 
old man exclaimed, ' ' Well done, my boy ! But, The- 
odore, I cannot afford to keep you there!" "True, 



EXAMPLES OF GENIUS OVERCOMING DIFFICULTY. 6^ 

father," replied Theodore, "1 am not going to study- 
there ; I shall study at home, at odd times, and thus 
prepare myself for a final examination, which will 
give me a diploma." This he did: he not only 
studied at home, but taught school in a village near 
home ; and when he got money enough he entered 
the college, where he studied for a little over two 
years, and obtained his diploma. 

Harvard has turned out many a fine scholar, many 
an accomplished man, before and since ; but few 
among them have attained greater distinction, or filled 
a larger place in the hearts of their countrymen, than 
this poor, professorless student of hers. Parker be- 
came one of the most eloquent preachers and powerful 
political leaders of his day, a fearless pleader for right 
and justice, and the trusted friend and adviser of such 
men as Seward, Chase, Sumner, Hale, Banks, Garrison, 
Horace Mann, and Wendell Phillips. He led a life of 
spotless purity, of defiant, fearless devotion to prin- 
ciple, and contributed as much, perhaps, as any man 
of his time in furthering that great cause which finally 
resulted in the emancipation of the negro and in the 
rewelding of our great American union. 

As to William Cobbett, he may be allowed to 
speak for himself Cobbett is the most autobio- 
graphical of writers, and I cannot do better than 
let him tell his own story. He was born in 1765, 
at Farnham, England, where his father cultivated 
a small farm. "At eleven years of age," he says, 
"my employment was clipping of box-edgings and 
weeding beds of flowers in the garden of the Bishop 
of Winchester at the Castle of Farnham. I had 
always been fond of oeai'>-Iful gardens; and a gar^ 



64 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

dener, who had just come from the King's gardens 
at Kew, gave me such a description of them as 
made me instantly resolve to work in those gardens. 
The next morning, without saying a word to any 
one, off I set, with no clothes except those upon 
my back, and with thirteen half-pence in my pocket. 
I found that I must go to Richmond, and I accord- 
ingly went on from place to place, inquiring my 
way thither. A long day — it was in June — brought 
me to Richmond in the afternoon. Two penny- 
worth of bread and cheese and a pennyworth of 
small beer, which I had on the road, and one-half 
penny that I had lost somehow or other, left three- 
pence in my pocket. With this for my whole for- 
tune, I was trudging through Richmond in my blue 
smock-frock, and my red garters tied under my 
knees, when, staring about me, my eyes fell upon a 
little book in a bookseller's window, on the out- 
side of which was written, ' The Tale of a Tub, 
price 3d.' The title was so odd that my curiosity 
was excited. I had the threepence, but then I 
could not have any supper. In I went, and got the 
little book, which I was so impatient to read tha> 
I got over into a field at the upper corner of Kew 
Gardens, where there stood a haystack. On the 
shady side of this I sat down to read. The book 
was so different from anything I had ever read be- 
fore — it was something so new to my mind — that, 
though I could not understand some parts of it, it 
delighted me beyond description, and it produced 
what I have always considered a sort of birth of 
intellect. I read on until it was dark, without any 
thought of supper or bed. When I could see no 



EXAMPLES OF GENIUS OVERCOMING DIFFICULTY. 65 

longer, I put my little book into my pocket, and 
tumbled down by the side of the stack, where I 
slept till the birds in Kew Gardens awakened me in 
the morning, when I started off to Kew, reading 
my little book. The singularity of my dress, the 
simplicity of my manner, my lively and confident 
air, and doubtless his own compassion besides, in- 
dirced the gardener — who was a Scotchman, I remem- 
ber — to give me victuals, find me lodging, and set 
me to work ; and it was during the period that I 
was at Kew, that George IV. and two of his 
brothers, happening to come by while I was sweep- 
ing the grass plot round the foot of the pagoda, 
laughed at the oddness of my dress. The gardener, 
seeing me fond of books, lent me some gardening 
books to read ; but these I could not relish after 
my 'Tale of a Tub,' which I carried about with me 
wherever I went ; and when I, at about twenty- 
four years old, lost it in a box that fell overboard 
in the Bay of Fundy, in North America, the loss 
gave me greater pain than I have ever felt at los- 
ing thousands of pounds." 

Cobbett followed the plough till he was nineteen 
years old, when he ran away to London, where he 
spent eight or nine months as a law-copying clerk, 
and then enlisted in an infantry regiment. While 
undergoing his drilling, during the first year at Chat- 
ham, he subscribed to a circulating library, read every 
book in it — novels, plays, history, poetry — and then 
set himself to study grammar, which he learned un- 
der the following circumstances : 

"I learned grammar when I was a private soldier 
on the pay of sixpence a day. The edge of my 



66 CULTUKE BY SELF-HELP. 

berth, or that of the guard-bed, was my seat to study- 
in ; my knapsack was my book-case ; a bit of board 
lying on my lap was my writing-table; and the task 
did not demand anything like a year of my life. 
I had no money to purchase candle or oil ; in winter, 
it was rarely that I could get any evening-light but 
that of the fire, and only my turn even of that. To 
buy a pen or a sheet of paper, I was compelled to 
forego some portion of my food, though in a state 
of half starvation. I had no moment of time that 
I could call my own ; and I had to read and write 
amidst the talking, laughing, singing, whistling, and 
bawling of at least half-a-score of the most thought- 
less of men, and that, too, in the hours of their free- 
dom from all control. Think not lightly of the 
farthing I had to give, now and then, for pen, ink 
or paper. That farthing was, alas ! a great sum to 
me. I was as tall as I am now, and I had great 
health and great exercise. The whole of the money, 
not expended for us at market, was twopence a week 
for each man. I remember, and well I may ! that 
upon one occasion, I had, after all absolutely neces- 
sary expenses, on a Friday, made shift to have a 
half-penny in reserve, which I had destined for the 
purchase of a red-herring in the morning ; but when 
I pulled off my clothes at night, so hungry then as 
to be hardly able to endure life, I found that I had 
lost my half-penny. I buried my head under the 
miserable sheet and rug, and cried like a child ! " 

Could there be a more striking example of Genius 
overcoming Difficulty.? 

On leaving the army, he married ; went over to 
France ; studied the language, literature, and habits 



EXAMPLES OF GENIUS OVERCOMING DIFFICULTY. 67 

of the French people ; emigrated to the United States 
(1792); became a teacher of English to French emi- 
gres; a political pamphleteer; an editor and "offensive 
partisan;" then returned to England (1800), where he 
w^as kindly received by certain political leaders ; dined 
vi^ith Mr. Pitt, Mr. Wyndham, Mr. Canning, and others ; 
and then visited his native place, vv^hich visit he thus 
graphically describes : 

"When I returned to England in 1800, after an 
absence from the country parts of sixteen years, the 
trees, the hedges, even the parks and woods, seemed 
so small ! It made me laugh to hear little gutters 
that I could jump over called rivers. The Thames 
was but a creek ! But when, about a month after 
my arrival in London, I went to Farnham, the place 
of my birth, what was my surprise ! Everything 
was become so pitifully small ! I had to cross, in 
my post-chaise, the long and dreary heath of Bag- 
shot ; then, at the end of it, to mount a hill called 
Hungry Hill ; and from that hill I knew I should 
look down into the beautiful and fertile vale of Farn- 
ham. My heart fluttered with impatience, mixed with 
a sort of fear, to see all the scenes of my child- 
hood ; for I had learnt before of the death of my 
father and mother. There is a hill, not far from the 
town, called Crooksbury Hill, which rises up out of 
the plain, in the form of a cone, and is planted with 
Scotch fir-trees. Here I used to take the eggs and 
young ones of crows and magpies. This hill was a 
famous object in the neighborhood. It served as the 
superlative degree of height. 'As high as Crooksbury 
Hiir meant with us the utmost degree of height 
Therefore, the first object my eyes sought was thia 



68 CULTURB BY SELF-HELP. 

hill. I could not believe my eyes ! Literally speak- 
ing, I for a moment thought the famous hill removed, 
and a little heap put in its stead; for I had seen in 
New Brunswick a single rock, or hill of solid rock, 
ten times as big and four times as high. The post- 
boy, going down the hill, and not a bad road, whisked 
me in a few minutes to the Bush Inn, from the garden 
of which I could see the prodigious sand-hill where 
I had begun my gardening works. What a nothing 1 
But now came rushing into my mind, all at once, my 
pretty little garden, my little blue smock-frock, my little 
nailed shoes, my pretty pigeons that I used to feed out 
of my hands, and the last kind words and tears of my 
gentle and tender-hearted and affectionate mother! I 
hastened back into the room. If I had looked a mo- 
ment longer I should have dropped. When I came to 
reflect, what a change ! What scenes I had gone 
through! How altered my state! I had dined the 
day before at the Secretary of State's, in company with 
Mr. Pitt, and had been waited upon by men in gaudy 
liveries ! I had had nobody to assist me in the world ; 
no teacher of any sort, nobody to shelter me from the 
consequences of bad, and no one to counsel me to 
good behavior. I felt proud. The distinctions of rank, 
birth, and wealth, all became nothing in my eyes ; and 
from that moment — less than a month after my arrival 
in England — I resolved never to bend before them. " 

Such were the facilities for acquiring knowledge, such 
was the manner of study, and such was the success of 
this famous writer, the man who became so great a 
master in English prose composition, the possessor of 
a style so charming, so pure", elegant and forcible, that 
he ranks with Swift, Defoe, and Bunyan, and his wri- 



EXAMPLES OF GENIUS OVERCOMING DIFFICULTY. 69 

tings are considered worthy of study as a model of 
style. Cobbett became a great editor, a famous re- 
former and controversalist, a member of Parliament, 
and the author of many valuable books on political, 
educational, agricultural and social subjects. 

Will the reader allow me to cite one more example? 
Just listen to the account which Vice-President Henry 
Wilson gives to his townsmen of the difficulties he 
overcame and the hardships he endured in his youth : 

"I first saw the light here in your county of Stafford. 
I was born in poverty. Want sat by my cradle. I know 
what it is to ask a mother for bread when she has none 
to give. I left my home at ten years of age, and served 
an apprenticeship of eleven years, receiving a month's 
schooling each year, and at the end of eleven years of 
hard work a yoke of oxen and six sheep, which brought 
me eighty-four dollars. I never spent the sum of one 
dollar for pleasure, counting every penny from the time 
I was born till I was twenty-one years of age. I know 
what it is to travel weary miles and ask my fellow men 
to give me leave to toil. I remember in October, 1833, 
I walked into your village from my native town, went 
through your mills seeking employment. If anybody 
had offered me nine dollars a month I should have ac- 
cepted it gladly. I went to Salem Falls ; I went to 
Dover ; I went to Newmarket and tried to get work ; 
all without success, and returned home footsore and 
weary, but not discouraged. I put my pack on my 
back and walked to the town in which I now live in 
Massachusetts, and learned a mechanic's trade. . . . 
In the first month after I was twenty-one years of age, 
I went into the woods, drove a team, and cut mill 
logs. I rose in the morning before daylight and 



^0 CULTURE BY SELP-HELP. 

worked hard till after dark, and received the magnifi- 
cent sum of six dollars ! Each of those dollars looked 
as large to me as the moon looks to-night." 

Thus I think I have shown pretty conclusively that 
genius is neither smothered by poverty nor killed by 
difficulties, and that those who possess it will rise and 
make themselves known in spite of every obstacle. 

Note. — ^Mr. Lawrence Hutton gives the following list of 
distinguished Americans who never attended college : " Mark 
Twain, Howells, Aldrich, Stockton, George W. Cable, Kichard 
Watson Gilder, Walt Whitman, Whiteomb Riley, Banner, 
Hopkinson Smith, Charles Henry Webb (John Paul), Bret 
Harte, Joaquin Miller, Thomas Russell Sullivan, Artemus 
Ward, Edward Eggleston, Hamilton Gibson, John Burroughs, 
Harold Frederick, Howard Pyle, Thomas Janvier, James 
Parton, Buchanan Read, E. L. Youmans, Bronson Alcott, 
Charles Brockton Paine, Audubon, Rodman Drake, Bayard 
Taylor, John G. Whittier, John Howard Payne, William 
Curtis, and Washington Irving." None of these, not even 
Lawrence Hutton himself, were college-bred men. 

If all the distinguished men of Great Britain and Ireland 
who never attended college, or who learned by self-help, were 
added to this list, what a brilliant constellation this would 
make! 



CHAPTER IX. 



THE SECRET OF LITERARY SUCCESS. 

SOME writers on education make statements which 
are rather discouraging to those young people who 
are endeavoring to make progress by their own 
exertions. Dr. Smiles speaks of Dr. Burney learning 
French and Italian while travelling on horseback from 
one musical pupil to another ; of Kirke White learning 
Greek while walking to and from a lawyer's office ; of 
a boy learning Latin and French while carrying mes- 
sages in the streets of Manchester ; and of Elihu Bur- 
ritt learning forty languages while earning his living 
as a blacksmith. 

Now this is all nonsense. These persons may, in 
that way, have got a smattering of these languages, 
and succeeded, perhaps, with the aid of a dictionary, 
in making out a passage or two in a French or Italian, 
Greek or Latin book; but they never learned to read, 
write, or speak these languages, with any degree of 
correctness, in that way. The knowledge of a lan- 
guage does not depend on the learning of mere words 
and phrases; that is, in fact, the smallest part of the 
business. A proper comprehension of the structure of 
the sentence is the main thing; and for this and a 



72 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

fair knowledge of the grammatical forms, the closest 
thought and the most careful attention are necessary. 
Memory is by no means the chief faculty employed ; for 
the advantages gained in learning a language do not 
consist in the ability to repeat passages by heart, or to 
ask a waiter for some foreign dish, but in the power 
to comprehend principles — and these throw light on 
the structure of the native tongue as well as on that of 
the one studied — in the ability to express thought logi- 
cally and in conformity with the laws on which the 
language is based. This requires more understanding 
than memory, more knowledge of principles than of 
words. That is why Cobbett's French Grammar is 
so much better than the collections of words and rules 
that usually go under the name of French grammars. 

Nothing, therefore, but steady and undivided atten- 
tion can enable one to master a foreign language. All 
this ' ' Latin without a Master, " and ' ' Greek in Six 
Weeks," is the merest catchpenny humbug. One must 
read and translate hundreds of pages from the foreign 
into the native, and from the native into the foreign 
tongue, before one can use either correctly. I know of 
only three Germans in the United States who have 
mastered English : I mean Mr. Carl Schurz, the late 
Professor Schem, and John B. Stallo of Ohio ; and of 
only one American who has mastered German, Mr. 
Bayard Taylor. The rest are mere smatterers, who 
have learned just enough "to get along;" and this is 
all they wanted to do. I defy the best of the native 
Germans to write down on demand ten consecutive 
English sentences without a blunder. I defy the best 
of them to make a ten-minute speech, and let a re^ 
porter take it down word for word, without making* 



THE SECRET OF LITERARY SUCCESS. 73 

a laughing-stock of himself. It is easy to get a smat- 
tering of a language ; it is easy to ask for meat and 
drink, to inquire one's way, to buy and sell, and em- 
ploy the ordinary phrases about one's health and the 
weather ; all this Sauveur business is very easy ; but it 
is hard, very hard, and requires the closest study, to 
master a language, to become capable of using it cor- 
rectly in expressing thought. I learned German so as 
to pass for a German among Germans, but it took me 
almost my entire time and my undivided attention for 
a whole year to do it ; and even now I should hardly 
venture to write anything in that language for the 
press without having it looked over by a native. "The 
growth of what is excellent is slow," says Cowper ; and 
nothing excellent is ever acquired very easily. " Some 
will never learn anything because they understand 
everythiiii^ too soon," says another writer. I remenr • 
ber reading of an actor who succeeded, in a case of 
extreme necessity, in cramming the chief role of a com- 
edy into his memory in a few hours, and then success- 
fully playing the part at night ; but he said he forgot 
the whole thing in about as short a time as he had 
learned it. And that is precisely the case with those 
who \earn, or rather cram, a language into their heads 
in a few weeks or months. Knowledge of every kind 
grows like a plant, and anything of a mushroom growth 
is sure to be worthless. Every sensible teacher will 
tell you that one language well learned is better than a 
smattering of twenty. For in the proper learning of 
one language you get a training of the mind, an in- 
crease of mental power, which is never gotten by 
smatterings. Never mind what the precocities and the 
prodigies do ; the slow learning of a plain man will last 



74 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

you longer and be far more serviceable to you than 
any wonderful overnight growth of knowledge. 

Furthermore, no man can learn anything without a 
motive or incentive, a good, strong, sensible motive. 
Whatever you study must be studied with the view of 
making use, in some way, of the knowledge gained or 
the ability acquired. And not only use, but some 
benevolent, philanthropic use. Horace Mann did not 
think that any self-improvement could be vital, or 
worthy, that did not ally itself with the improvement 
of others. When you study, think of what good you 
can do with your knowledge, as well as of how much 
fame you can win, or of how much money you can 
make. I do not say you should not think of the latter ; 
you should ; for I believe with Horace Greeley that 
every healthy young man, in this country, ought to be 
ashamed of being poor. But I also believe that a man 
who, with all the knowledge in the world, thinks of 
nothing but his own success, and never dreams of help- 
ing mankind in any way, of ameliorating the evils of 
society, is a poor, pitiful creature ; sure to be miserable 
in the end, and to find all his honors and gains turn to 
ashes in his grasp. That is what the Apostle Paul 
means, when he says that all the gifts under heaven 
avail nothing without charity. Remember Wolsey's 
words : 

Let all the ends thou aimst at be thy country's, 
Thy God's and truth's ; then, if thou fall'st, 
Thou fall'st a blessed martyr ! 
Never study on speculation ; all such study is vain. 
Form a plan; have an object; then work for it; learn 
all you can about it, and you will be sure to succeed. 
What I mean by studying on speculation is that aim- 
less learning of things because they may be useful 



THE SECRET OF LITERARY SUCCESS. 75 

some day; which is like the conduct of the woman 
who bought at auction a brass door-plate with the 
name of Thompson on it, thinking it might come in 
useful som_o day ! You should study things that you 
know cannot fail, under ordinary circumstances, to be 
useful. "It is not the quantity of study that one gets 
through," says Dr. Smiles, "nor the amount of reading 
done, that makes one a wise man ; but the suitableness 
of the study to the purpose for which it is pursued ; 
the concentration of the mind, for the time being, on 
the subject under consideration, and the habitual disci- 
pline by which the mental powers are thus regulated.'"' 
Do not neglect, however, to devote some time to any 
subject which you like, whether there be a direct prom- 
ise of usefulness in it or not, for this is what you are 
apt to do best, and is therefore in the direct line of suc- 
cess. You may pursue this as a recreative hobby, 
which often leads one to the profession for which he is 
best fitted. 

Application, regular, constant, steady application, in 
furnishing and equipping the mind with all that it is 
capable of, is the great thing. Not even a genius can 
produce anything valuable without exertion of some 
kind. As every soil must be fed with proper ingre- 
dients before it will produce anything of value, so must 
the mind of man be fed with the thoughts and expe- 
riences, the discoveries and inventions, of other men 
before it will produce anything wholesome or nutri- 
tious. The uncultivated mind will, like the rank soil, 
produce nothing but weeds. A man can no more pro- 
duce a work of art without study than a farmer can 
produce crops without sowing. "Genius," says Ma- 
caulay, "is subject to the same laws as those whirh 



76 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

regulate the production of cotton and molasses." "To 
ascribe to genius," says Professor Tyler, "strictly crea- 
tive power, which can work without instruments or 
materials, is to ascribe to it prerogatives which belong 
to nothing earthly. God alone can create out of noth- 
ing. Man can produce only by time and toil, reflec- 
tion and study, proportioned to the value of the pro- 
duction. " 

"The masterpieces of antiquity, as well in literature 
as in art," says Henry Ward Beecher, "are known 
to have received their extreme finish from an almost 
incredible continuance of labor upon them. I do not 
remember a book in all the departments of learning, 
nor a scrap in literature, nor a work in all the schools 
of art, from which its author has derived a permanent 
renown, that is not known to have been long and 
patiently elaborated. Genius needs industry as much 
as industry needs genius. If only Milton's imagination 
could have conceived his visions, his consummate in- 
dustry alone could have carved the immortal lines 
which enshrine them. If only Newton's mind could 
reach out to the secrets of nature, even his genius 
could do it only by the homeliest toil. The works of 
Bacon are not midsummer-night dreams, but, like coral 
islands, they have risen from the depths of truth, and 
formed their broad surfaces above the ocean by the 
minutest accretions of persevering labor. The concep- 
tions of Michael Angelo would have perished like a 
night's phantasy, had not his industry given them 
permanence." 

Daniel Webster never spoke in public without 
careful preparation. He despised the affectation of 
those who trusted to the spur of the moment, and 



THE SECRET OF LITERARY SUCCESS. 77 

he thought it a duty he owed to those before 
whom he was to speak to consider carefully before- 
hand what he intended to say. He never appeared 
before the court, the bar, the Senate or the people 
without making out a well-considered plan of his 
speech and weighing every point to be made. The 
result is that all his speeches are as worthy of 
being read to-day as they were of being listened 
to when spoken, for they contain sentiments that 
are always fresh and new, always applicable, and 
probably no speeches in our language are more 
largely read at the present day than those of this 
master of eloquence. 

Few persons ever suspect, while reading the works 
of the most brilliant essayist and historian of mod- 
em times, the extreme care and pains he took in 
preparing his matter and polishing his sentences. 
Mr. Trevelyan, in his "Life of Macaulay," makes 
the following remarkable statement : 

"The main secret of Macaulay's success lay in 
this, that to extraordinary fluency and facility he 
united patient, minute and persistent diligence. He 
well knew, as Chaucer knew before : 

There is no workeman 
That can both worken well and hastilie : 
This mnsi be done at leisure parfaitlie. 

As soon as he had got into his head all the in- 
formation relating to any particular episode in his 
'History,' he would sit down and write off the whole 
story at a headlong pace, sketching in the outlines 
under the genial and audacious impulse of a first 
conception, and securing in black and white each 
idea and epithet and turn of phrase, as it flowed 



78 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

straight from his busy brain to his rapid fingers. 
His manuscript appeared, at this stage, to the eyes of 
anyone but himself, to consist of column after column 
of dashes and flourishes, in which a straight line, with 
a half-formed letter at each end and another in the 
middle, did duty for a word. As soon as he had 
finished his rough draft he began to fill it in at the 
rate of six sides of foolscap every morning, written 
in so large a hand and with such a multitude of 
erasures that the whole six pages were, on an average, 
compressed into two pages of print. This portion he 
called his daily 'task,' and he was never quite easy un- 
less he completed it daily. . . . He never allowed a 
sentence to pass muster until it was as good as he could 
make it. He thought little of recasting a chapter in 
order to obtain a more lucid arrangement, and nothing 
whatever of reconstructing a paragraph for the sake of 
one happy stroke or apt illustration. 

Antonio Stradivari has an eye 
That winces at false work and loves the true. 
Leonardo da Vinci would walk the whole length of 
Milan that he might alter a single tint in his picture 
of the 'Last Supper.' Napoleon kept the returns of 
his army under his pillow at night, to refer to in 
case he was sleepless, and would set himself prob- 
lems at the opera while the overture was playing : 
' I have ten thousand men at Strasbourg ; fifteen 
thousand at Magdeburg ; twenty thousand at Wurz- 
burg. By what stages must they march so as to 
arrive at Ratisbon on three successive days ? ' What 
his violins were to Stradivarius, and his fresco to 
Leonardo, and his campaigns to Napoleon, that was 
his ' History ' to Macaulay. " 



THE SECRET OF LITERARY SUCCESS. 79 

Even Sheridan, who is commonly regarded as one 
of those marvellous geniuses who never open their 
mouths without dropping pearls of wit and wisdom, 
took good care to make a careful preparation, a close 
study of his subject, whenever any great effort was to 
be made. Tom Moore thinks that one reason for 
the success of his famous Begum speech was that he 
had come fresh from an exhaustive study of the whole 
subject of Indian affairs, and therefore poured out his 
arguments and descriptions with a vividness and fresh- 
ness that a life-long student could hardly command. 
When the world gave Sheridan credit for being asleep, 
he was sitting up in his bed, early in the morning, 
preparing his witty sayings for the evening. It is 
known that he wrote and re-wrote over and over again 
several if not all of his brilliant comedies ; hence their 
rare polish and abundance of sparkling wit. "Easy 
writing," he says himself, " is commonly damned hard 
reading." The same was the practice of many other 
writers, notably of Bolingbroke, Pope and Gibbon. 
Bolingbroke, who was one of the most brilliant men 
of a brilliant age, was such a tireless worker that Swift, 
himself a hard-working student, marvelled at his power 
of application. "He would plod whole days and 
nights," he says, "like the lowest clerk in his office." 
Pope on one occasion brought two of his poems to 
Dodsley, his publisher, to be fairly copied. "Every 
line," said Dodsley, "was then written twice over by 
Pope. I gave him a clean transcript, which he sent me 
some time afterward for the press with every line writ- 
ten twice over a second time." Gibbon wrote out his 
Memoir nine times before he was satisfied with it ; and 
the first chapters of his History he wrote out twice as 



8o 



CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 



many times. Montesquieu, speaking of one of his 
works, said to a friend: "You will read it in a few 
hours, but I assure you it has cost me so much labor 
that it has whitened my hair." 

If there is any man who might seem to be an excep- 
tion to the rule, it is Mirabeau, who, after living forty 
years without making any sign, suddenly sprang into 
fame as an all-powerful orator and all-accomplished 
statesman. His whole brilliant public career is included 
within twenty-three months : yet in this period he did 
more work than many a statesman in twenty-three 
years. In fact he was a prodigious worker. " Had I 
not lived with him," says Dumont, "I should never 
have had any idea of what a man may do within a sin- 
gle day; what business may be transacted in the course 
of twelve hours. A day for this man was as much as a 
week or a month for another." Mirabeau's secretary 
once said to him that something was impossible. 
"Impossible!" said he, jumping from his chair, 
"never name to me again that blockhead's word!" 

Perhaps the chief reason why these men excelled 
other men is because they took more pains than other 
men. They believed that what was worth doing at all 
was worth doing well. George Ripley said that he who 
does not write as well as he can on every occasion will 
soon form the habit of not writing well on any occa- 
sion. Even Sir Isaac Newton himself, who is set down 
by scientific philosophers as the greatest genius of all 
times and of all countries, 

So near the gods, man cannot neaier go, 
declared that whatever service he had rendered to hu- 
manity was not owing to any extraordinary sagacity he 
possessed, but solely to industry and patient thought. 



THE SECRET OF LITERARY SUCCESS. 8 1 

How different this is from the popular conception of 
genius ! In fact, most people seem to imagine that 
genius has nothing to do with industry and patient 
thought ; that these qualities belong to plodders, and 
that genius works its marvels by taking advantage of 
certain floods of inspiration, that rise suddenly and 
carry one along swiftly to fame and fortune ! 

I once heard a very skilful and successful sea-cap- 
tain exclaim, after listening with rapt attention to the 
holiday oration of a professional orator, "Nay, that 
is something beyond my capacity; something I could 
never do ! " and he consequently looked upon the orator 
as a sort of superior being. But this feeling is about as 
reasonable as that of the boy who looks upon the feats 
of the professional prestidigitateur with feelings of awe, 
as the work of a real magician, a man endowed with 
supernatural power ; and just as the boy's feelings be- 
come greatly modified when he is shown how the magi- 
cian accomplishes his feats, so would those of the ad- 
mirer of the orator be modified if he were shown all the 
work that precedes his performances. The orator had 
devoted years to the study of history, literature, sci- 
ence, art, elocution ; he had practiced for years in 
debating societies and clubs ; he had devoted his whole 
mind to public speaking as his business, the means by 
which he was to earn his bread ; he had made it his 
study by day and his dream by night, the alpha and 
omega of his aims and objects. Had the captain served 
such an apprenticeship to oratory ; had he even de- 
voted as much time and pains to the study of public 
speaking as he had to the study of navigation and com- 
mercial enterprise, he would probably have become as 
skilful and accomplished in oratory as he was in navi- 



82 



CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 



gation ; for the basis of success in this art, as in every 
other, is constant application, steady devotion to all 
the means leading to the end desired. " Never depend 
upon your genius," says John Ruskin, quoting the words 
9f Sir Joshua Reynolds, in one of his lectures to art 
students: "never depend upon your genius: if you 
have talent, industry will improve it ; if you have none, 
industry will supply the deficiency." If this be true in 
the domain of art, how much more so, or how un- 
questionably so, in other domains ! 

There is one instance in which Sir Joshua's words 
may be looked upon as having proved literally true. 
Industry certainly supplied the place of genius in the 
case of Anthony Trollope, who never worked for any- 
thing but money, and who never himself nor anybody 
else claimed that he possessed genius ; and yet he was 
a successful novelist ! This indomitable worker made 
it a strict duty to write his fifteen hundred words a day, 
rain or shine, in the vein or not in the vein ; and he 
produced a series of novels for which he found many 
readers and very handsome remuneration. He followed 
the advice which another literary man gave him, and 
which he gave to Robert Buchanan: "When you sit 
down to write, put a piece of cobbler's wax on the bot- 
tom of your chair ! That's the only way to get work 
done I" And I believe he got much more from the 
cobbler's wax than he ever got from inspiration ! 



CHAPTER X. 



A WORD TO BEGINNERS IN LITERARY WORK. 

i< A A T'RITING books does not pay ; there is no money 
VV in it," said an able lawyer to me one day. 
He was himself the author of several books, 
and a man of fine culture and large experience. "I 
could earn more money," he continued, "by copying 
law papers at five cents a folio than by writing books." 

This is doubtless correct; but the main object of a 
good writer is not money-making. He has something 
to say, and wishes to say it ; that is all. One whose 
main object is making money should never turn au- 
thor ; for this is not even a bread-winning, let alone a 
money-making business. If the hours devoted to a 
piece of literary work be counted, and the amount paid 
for it compared with the time devoted to it, it will gen- 
erally be found that the author is more poorly paid 
than the commonest street-sweeper. 

One thing is certain, no young man, if he be at all 
properly informed, will dare to count upon literary work 
as a means of earning his daily bread — never, at least, 
until he has gained a name, a very considerable name, 
in literature. All first efforts of this kind should be 
made in hours of leisure, in those hours secured after 



84 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

bread work. The chances of pecuniary reward for first 
efforts in literature are so slim that none but a novice 
would rely upon them for support. Every young man 
who takes to writing may safely count upon writing 
hundreds of pages before he produces anything worth 
reading, and then when he does produce something 
worth reading, he may safely count upon having hun- 
dreds of pages printed, if he get them printed at all, 
without pecuniary compensation. After that he may 
count upon receiving for his best efforts, if he persist in 
the work, some four or five hundred dollars a year ; not 
more. If he keep on after that, he may count upon 
anything. 

The reason why the literary man is so poorly paid, 
as compared with men of other professions, is because 
he is the only man whose greatest competitors are the 
dead. No lawyer or physician, teacher or preacher, 
need fear dead men ; they can't plead or bleed, teach 
or preach any more ; but the literary man works for 
readers only, and most readers value the work of the 
dead more than that of the living. Death sanctifies 
the author, puts a halo around his name, and immedi- 
ately increases the market value of his work. His pub- 
lisher has, after his death, a "corner" in his writings; 
he has all there is of them, and no more can be got. 

The man who makes what cannot die 

Is seldom truly prized 

Or rightly patronized 
Till death his work does sanctify, 

"An author has from the start," says Mr. Wm. S. 
Walsh, ' ' to compete not only with all the professionals 
of his own country and of other countries who speak 
the same language, or who are susceptible of transla- 



A WORD TO BEGINNERS IN LITERARY WORK. 85 

tion, but with the amateurs who occasionally dabble in 
literature ; and not only with the men of the present, 
but in a measure with those of the past. He is judged 
by the standards applied to the great masters of all 
times and countries ; and if he fail in the test, the critics 
and more thoughtful readers speak contemptuously of 
his work as trash. Yet even the man who fails in liter- 
ature may be cleverer than his readers or his critics, and 
the same amount of ability put into some calling with 
a more restricted field of action might win him a distin- 
guished position in his own locality. The successful 
author is as one picked out of many thousands. " 

Good literature cannot, like boots and shoes, be pro- 
duced at will. In fact, such literature is generally the 
outcome of flashes of inspiration. Now a man may 
not have more than half a dozen such flashes in his life- 
time ; and how can one who needs as much bread and 
butter, meat and potatoes, as another, expect to live on 
such flashes ? Look into the history of literary men. 
You will find most of them living from hand to mouth, 
begging and borrowing from every acquaintance, en- 
during all the humiliations of poverty for half a lifetime, 
and receiving at last a big funeral and many eulogies. 
Wordsworth never received more than five hundred 
dollars for all the poems he ever wrote. Longfellow 
was obliged to print his first works at his own expense. 
Balzac wrote two score of novels ("had forty books 
killed under him") before he wrote one that paid. And 
so on. Very rarely is a hit made at once ; and some- 
times what seems a hit is only an apparent one ; much 
talk, but few dollars. None but exceptionally bright 
geniuses make a hit at once, and such geniuses are 
rare. Byrons and Scotts are not born every year. 



86 CULTURE BY SELF-HtELP. 

This is precisely where all the trouble comes in. 
Every young writer thinks himself an exceptionally 
bright genius, and is confident that his work needs only 
to be published to be appreciated. Nothing but dire 
experience will rid him of this error. To a young man 
who contemplated embracing literature as a profession, 
Carlyle said he ' ' never heard of a madder proposal in 
his life ; he might as well throw himself from the top of 
the monument with the hope of flying ! " 

While I write, the following newspaper paragraph, 
which throws a somewhat lurid light on the subject, is 
pointed out to me : 

"Hans Jaeger, one of the cleverest authors of Nor- 
way, has accepted the place of a common sailor on 
one of the Scandinavian ships. Although his books 
are popular and read by all classes, he has not been 
successful financially. Long residence in the Norwe- 
gian capital and close study of the lower classes of so- 
ciety, which he loves to write of in his books, have 
undermined his health and forced him to adopt another 
profession. Although his hands were soft and his head 
was covered by a worn-out silk hat when asking for a 
place before the mast, his powerful frame gave the cap- 
tain confidence in him, and secured him the place." 

And as a correlative to this story, the following, by 
Julian Hawthorne, who knows whereof he speaks, will 
serve well : 

" Five hundred dollars a year for a successful novel! 
How many of our authors make twice that ? How 
many ten times as much ? How many twenty times as 
much ? I will engage to entertain at dinner, at a round 
table five feet in diameter, all the American novelists 
who make more than a thousand dollars a year out of 



A WORD TO BEGINNERS IN LITERARY WORK, Sy 

the royalty on any one of their novels, and to give 
them all they want to eat and drink, and three of the 
best cigars apiece afterward, and a hack to take them 
home in ; and I will agree to forfeit a thousand dollars 
to the Home for Imbeciles if twenty-five dollars does 
not liquidate the bill, and leave enough over to buy a 
cloth copy of each of the works in question, with the 
author's autograph on the fly-leaf. One hack would be 
sufficient, and would allow of their putting up their feet 
on the seat in front of them. " 

Nothing less than regular employment as reporter or 
editorial writer can be counted on to make a living. 
No young man, let him be ever so gifted, should for a 
moment expect to support himself as a writer of books, 
or as a contributor to magazines. That is where poor 
Chatterton, and others like him, made their grand mis- 
take. It takes at least six months to write a good novel 
or a good biography, and, supposing its author suc- 
ceeds in getting a pubHsher, he may consider himself 
lucky if he get four or five hundred dollars for it. Of 
five thousand articles sent every year to Lippincott's 
Magazine, only two hundred were accepted, or could 
be accepted. Consider the amount of disappointment 
and suffering this fact alone reveals. And what is the 
reward of the successful contributor? Five to ten dol- 
lars for a thousand words — that is the usual fee. Even 
if he get two or three articles in every month, what a 
shabby compensation this affords ! 

There has lately been a new departure in this mag- 
azine business. The editor of a first-class magazine 
does not now depend upon unsolicited contributions 
to fill his pages ; in fact he does not care for them at 
all. Knowing what he wants, and having the means 



88 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

to pay for it, he can get it without wading through 
oceans of manuscript. He makes a liberal offer tp 
several well-known writers for an article from each of 
so many words on a living topic of the day, and he 
gets them. Thus he makes up his magazine without 
much trouble. Do we not see that most of our leading 
periodicals are now stocked with articles from well- 
known or famous pens ? That is what pays ; for not 
only does the name of the writer attract, but the sub- 
ject he writes on, which is sure to be one that is upper- 
most in the minds of men. The reader may ask, Pray, 
how came these writers to be famous ? By writing for 
yeari without any pay at all ; by writing hundreds of 
pages as mere practice- work ; by working like galley- 
slaves at literature for half a lifetime with no other 
compensation than — fame. 

To be sure, when a young man happens to have 
some new ideas on a burning topic, or a good concep- 
tion of a capital story, he should by all means write 
it down; but he should never do this for the sake of 
pecuniary reward, nor, when he has done it, count 
upon receiving much for his work. 

If he get his first efforts published at all, he may be 
well content. A gentleman, now well known as a 
writer, once said to a young lady who had some little 
success in magazine work, and whom he tried in vain 
to dissuade from continuing in it, ' ' Well, as I see you 
are in for it, and are determined to live by suffering, 
let me give you this bit of advice : Get your name 
made familiar to the public as soon as you can. Every 
time your name is mentioned in a leading journal it is 
worth five dollars to you." This, you see, is one of 
the tricks of the trade. But getting known by good 



A WORD TO BEGINNERS IN LITERARY WORK. 89 

work is far better. Work on, young writer, in leisure 
hours, when you are in the vein, until you have gained 
the ear of the public ; and then you may command 
your price. 

Now, when a young writer does begin to work, what 
is the best course he should take ? When he has fin- 
ished a piece of work, what shall he do with it.? Shall 
he offer it immediately to a publisher, or shall he show 
it to some friend, and seek his judgment upon it ? The 
latter is rather a ticklish business. We all know that 
friends have pronounced unfavorably upon many 
works which the public unhesitatingly approved. John 
Bunyan, for instance, submitted the manuscript of the 
"Pilgrim's Progress" to some of his friends; where- 
upon, he tells us himself, 

Some said, ' John, print it ; ' 

Others said, 'Not so.' 
Some said, ' It might do good,' 

Others said, ' No.' 

And Burke, when he had completed his "Reflections 
on the French Revolution," showed it to his friend, Sir 
Philip Francis, who did his utmost to dissuade him 
from publishing it. The judgment of friends is gener- 
ally either partial or over severe ; and indeed it is hard 
to ask a friend to pronounce judgment on a new piece 
of literary work, for he may feel embarrassed at telling 
the truth about it. And if he be severe, what pain he 
may give the author ! nay, what injury he may inflict 
upon him ! The most lamentable case of this kind is 
that of poor Torquato Tasso, who, when his great 
poem, "Jerusalem Delivered," was completed, sent a 
copy of it to a sort of inquisitorial tribunal of critics 
at Rome, who made a great number of carping and pe- 



90 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

dantic criticisms of it, to which the poor distressed 
author endeavored to conform. It was the revising 
and changing his poem to suit these critics that drove 
him into insanity and rendered his whole subsequent 
life unhappy. There is no foundation whatever for the 
story on which Goethe founded his drama, "Torquato 
Tasso," that his insanity grew out of love for the 
Princess Leonora of Ferrara. 

The best way, I think, for the young author is this : 
He should lay aside his work, when completed, for 
about six months or a year, and then look over it and 
pronounce judgment on it himself. He is then himself 
a different person, and will look at his work with new 
eyes. If his work now please him, and he think it 
worthy of publication, he should offer it immediately 
to a publisher, and leave it to his judgment and that of 
the public. If Tasso had done this, his self-consti- 
tuted critics would have joined in the general chorus of 
praise that followed its publication. The reader may 
remember that it was after a judgment of this kind that 
Scott concluded to finish and publish his first novel. 



CHAPTER XI. 



HOW GREAT THINGS ARE DONE. 

1READ the other day of a French preacher who, 
whenever he appears in the pulpit of Notre Dame, 
draws all the 61ite of Paris to hear him ; so fas- 
cinating, eloquent, and polished are his discourses. 
How comes he to acquire this power.? He deliA^ers 
but five or six sermons in the year, generally in the 
season of Lent, and then retires to his convent, to 
spend the rest of the year in reading and study, and 
m preparing his half-dozen sermons for the next 
season. 

A preacher may compose fifty sermons in the year ; 
but then there will not be a masterpiece among them. 
Dr. Wayland took two years to compose his famous 
sermon on foreign missions ; but then it is a master- 
piece, worth a ton of ordinary sermons. I have heard 
of an eminent lawyer who, without any uncommon 
oratorical gifts, won nearly every case in which he 
was engaged ; and on being asked how he did it, he 
replied, "I learn all that can be learned of each case 
before it comes into court." 

After dictating an argument to Boswell, who was 
preparing to speak before a Committee of the House 



92 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

of Commons, Dr. Johnson said very wisely to him: 
"This you must enlarge on, when speaking to the 
Committee. You must not argue there as if you were 
arguing in the schools; close reasoning will not fix 
their attention ; you must say the same thing over and 
over again in different words. If you say it but once, 
they miss it, in a moment of inattention. It is unjust, 
sir, to censure lawyers for multiplying words when 
they argue ; it is often necessary for them to multiply 
words. " 

Perhaps the success of the great lawyers is largely 
owing to the same practice as that of the great preach- 
ers. The great aim of the latter is to make their point 
clear, and impress it on the minds of their hearers by 
every means in their power. "All great preachers," 
says Professor Tucker, * ' succeed by ceaseless reiteration, 
under constantly varying forms, of a few conceptions 
that have become supreme in their experience." The 
present chapter of this work, compared with that on 
Literary Success, presents (let me whisper it to the 
reader) merely an example of this practice. 

If I should be asked to give an example of a man 
of genius who, from want of steady application to 
work, failed to produce what might reasonably be 
expected of him, I should be at a loss, for a moment, 
which among many examples to choose. The name 
of Coleridge would probably come first to my mind; 
but disease and opium had much to do with his sad 
inactivity. He was a man of uncommon genius; 
everything he has written bears the stamp of genius ; 
but his will — aye, that had nothing of the character of 
genius in it; his will was wretchedly weak, and this 
was the cause of all his trouble. He planned many 



HOW GRE/T THINGS ARE DONE. 93 

things, but accomplished few. He would seldom even 
attempt to perform what he planned; yet in planning 
he was inexhaustible ; boundless projects with very- 
little performance. He was not, however, lacking in 
the will to talk, and his famous talks at Highgate had 
their effect on the crowds of young men who flocked 
to hear him, many of whom subsequently attained 
distinction. How often it thus happens that a man of 
the finest intellectual qualities has some fatal defect in 
his character which ruins him ! 

Perhaps no better example can be cited than that 
of a contemporary of his, Sir James Mackintosh, a 
man of brilliant talents, famous for one or two splen- 
did speeches, one or two finished essays, and one 
or two masterly philosophic dissertations. How 
came this man to produce so little? I shall give the 
answer in his own words, merely premising that in 
his youth he had been allowed to do as he pleased, 
and had acquired an indolent habit of straying aim- 
lessly from one subject to another. "No subsequent 
circumstance," he says, "could make up for that in- 
valuable habit of vigorous and methodical industry 
which the indulgence and irregularity of my school- 
life prevented me from acquiring, and of which I 
have painfully felt the want in every part of my life." 
Sir James lived till near three score and ten ; and 
yet, though a man of rare gifts, with a profound 
knowledge of art and literature, philosophy and poli- 
tics, he left little more than a few "precious frag- 
ments," which simply prove what he might have done, 
had he possessed that "invaluable habit," the want 
of which he so touchingly deplores. 

I might give you a dozen such examples ; but it is 



94 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP, 

not necessary. I have already shown that the finest 
genius in the world has done what it has done mainly 
by industry and patient thought : and I wish now to 
emphasize the fact that no habit is so valuable, no 
love of anything in the world so precious, as the love 
of labor, of constantly and regularly producing some- 
thing useful. Not only does it conduce to success in 
life, but it is the purifier of character, the producer of 
sane thoughts and of a sweet, wholesome, contented 
life. For "success is no success at all if it makes 
not a happy mind," A diligent workman, let him be 
ever so ignorant, is a far better man than the most 
cultivated idler. This is something that is never con- 
sidered by those fathers and mothers who want their 
sons to be bank-clerks and Wall-street merchants. 
Such positions, with little to do and much to get, 
are the very express-roads to perdition. The one 
great mistake that General Grant made was getting 
in among the Wall-street sharks. 

No man who values his character, no man who 
values the true welfare of his children, should en- 
gage or cause his children to engage in a business 
whose main object is to make money, not to earn 
it; to grow rich without labor; to rise on the ruin 
of others, and to steep the senses in the enjoyment 
of material wealth. "Wealth," says some one, "can 
never be conjured out of the crucible of political or 
commercial gambling. It must be hewed out of the 
forest, dug out of the earth, blasted out of the mine, 
pounded out on the anvil, wrought out of the machine- 
shop, or worked out of the loom." That is why Aus- 
tria is such a wretchedly poor, bankrupt country; one 
of its ehief sources of revenue (and chief .corruptions 



HOW GREAT THINGS ARK DONE. 95 

of the people) is its State lotteries, by which, though 
nothing is produced, everybody expects to get rich. 

"Of all the work that produces results," says the 
Bishop of Exeter, "nine-tenths must be drudgery. 
There is no work, from the highest to the lowest, 
that can be done by any man who is unwilling to 
make that sacrifice. Part of the very nobility of the 
devotion of the true workman to his work consists 
in the fact that he is not daunted by finding that 
drudgery must be done ; and no man can really suc- 
ceed in any walk of life without a good deal of what 
in ordinary English is called pluck." 

"Ah! "said a brave painter to Mr, Emerson, "if a 
man has failed, you will find he has dreamed instead 
of working. There is no way to success in our art but 
to take off your coat, grind paint, and work like a digger 
on the railroad, all day and every day." 

This is the secret of the success of the Germans in 
this country ; they are never afraid of drudgery ; they 
will study and learn anything to succeed. While French 
merchants, for instance, never think of learning any 
language but their own, the Germans learn, when re- 
quired, nearly every language of Europe. When the 
French do business with any foreign country, they 
write to that country in the language of France ; but 
the Germans write in the language of the country with 
which they trade. The young merchants of Germany 
learn their business so thoroughly well that they get 
into superior positions wherever they go. After a foui 
years' course in a commercial school, they serve three 
years longer in business houses without pay. The Ger- 
mans strive, in fact, after thorough equipment in all the 
professions. There are no quacks or halflings in Ger- 



g6 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

many. Such people are not tolerated. The leading 
merchants of France have found this out by experience. 
When the writer was in Paris, in 1862, he found that 
most of the responsible positions in mercantile houses 
were filled by young Germans. For a young Frenchman 
has five hundred thoughts on amour for one on any 
other subject. When the Parisians, at the outbreak of 
the late Franco-Prussian war, lost their heads and ban- 
ished the Germans from their city, they sent away their 
most skilful workmen in all those fine and fancy articles 
for which they had become famous ; and, after the war, 
the Parisians found that most of their trade had gone 
with the workmen to Vienna. They had killed the 
goose that laid the golden eggs. 

The law of progress is by gradual steps. A great 
invention is usually the result of the labors of three or 
four men living at different periods ; and had not the 
first done his part, the second would not have done his, 
nor the third completed it. Galvani gave the first inti- 
mation of the science which bears his name, galvanism ; 
Volta showed that it was a source of power of incal- 
culable importance; and Humphrey Davy, from the 
application of the galvanic energy to the composition 
and decomposition of various chemical substances, 
showed that the power called chemical affinity is iden- 
tical with that called electricity, thus creating a new 
science called electro-chemistry ; and thence he pro- 
ceeded, in the same line of experiments, until he made 
his grand invention, the Safety Lamp. Torricelli in- 
vented the barometer; but be had no idea of the 
various uses to which it was to be applied. It was 
Pascal who showed that it might be used for measur- 
ing the height of any place to which it could be carried ; 



HOW GREAT THINGS ARE DONE. 97 

and it was, I think, Priestley who showed its various 
uses in physical and mechanical researches. Napoleon 
sent Jacquard to study the models of machines in the 
Paris Museum of Inventions, and Jacquard found there 
the model of a machine which gave him the idea for 
constructing- his wonderful carpet pattern-weaving- loom. 
The Marquis of Worcester made, in 1655, a machine 
which, by the expansive power of steam, raised water 
to the height of forty feet ; then Thomas Newcomen, an 
ingenious mechanic, constructed, about half a century 
later, a kind of steam and atmospheric engine, which 
was used for working pumps ; and half a century after 
this, James Watt, while still working as a mathematical 
instrument maker, hit upon the ingenious expedient, the 
missing link, which practically made the steam engine 
what it is, the greatest invention ever made. Thus the 
great inventors and discoverers had predecessors who 
indicated or attempted something such as they achieved ; 
thus were they, as Dr. Hedge calls them, a succession 
of great bridge builders — men who spanned the chasm 
between the beginning and the ending of great inven- 
tions and discoveries. 

The same is doubtless true of the great creators in 
literature and art. There were epic poets, no doubt, be- 
fore Homer, just as there were dramatists before Shake- 
speare ; and certainly neither Homer nor Shakespeare 
could have achieved anything such as they did achieve, 
had they had no predecessors. We know, in fact, that 
Shakespeare first essayed his marvellous power of dra- 
matic composition by retouching and reviving old plays 
— literary corpses into which he breathed the breath of 
life — and I have no doubt that Homer did some inferior 
work before he rose to the Iliad. We do not know that 



pS CtTLTtJRE BY SELl^-HELP. 

the Iliad and the Odyssey are the greatest epics of an- 
tiquity ; we know only that they are the greatest that 
have come down to us. 

Thus it is that the studies and labors of one man help 
on the studies and labors of another ; thus it is that 
thoughts produce thoughts ; inventions produce inven- 
tions ; poems produce poems ; pictures produce pic- 
tures ; laws produce laws ; and thus the arts and 
sciences are carried forward, link after link, by one 
mind after another, till the chain be complete. ' ' No 
man, " says Garfield, "can make a speech alone. It is 
the great human power that strikes from a thousand 
minds ; this acts upon him and makes the speech. " 
Think of that, young man, when you are reading Burke's 
or Webster's masterpieces of oratory ; think of that, 
young woman, when you are reading Walter Scott's or 
George Eliot's masterpieces of fiction. You may not 
make such speeches or write such stories ; but they 
have their influence upon you ; you carry away some- 
thing from them ; and they will help you to make good 
speeches or to write good stories of your own. Any 
other kind you should never attempt to make or to 
write. "A man who writes well," says Montesquieu, 
' ' writes not as others write, but as he himself writes ; 
it is often in speaking badly that he speaks well. " Chat- 
ham's speeches, for instance, consisted of a series of 
rugged, broken sentences ; but they were his own, full 
of significance, characteristic, and true, and they carried 
ten times as much weight as the smooth, fluent, well- 
worded speeches of his opponents. 

I remember seeing a brawny-armed quarryman strike 
forty blows with a big hammer on a huge block of 
granite, all apparently in vain. I said to him, ** I should 



HOW GREAT THINGS ARE DONE. 99 

think, if you can't break that block in ten blows, you 
can't do it in a hundred." "Oh yes," said he, "every 
blow tells." I was struck with the remark ; and I never 
forgot it. It is a good illustration of all successful work. 
It may not be apparent, but every conversation, every 
speech, every sermon, every story, every experience in 
life tells in making up the man. And when a man, in 
some supreme moment, produces, without any appa- 
rent effort, and without any previous preparation, a 
masterpiece of oratory, a grand blaze of eloquence like 
Chatham's answer to Lord Suffolk, or Webster's reply to 
Hayne, it is simply the outcome of years of study and 
reflection, the product of a mind stored with the wit and 
wisdom of past ages, and trained to successful effort 
in the moment of necessity. "What though the fire 
bursts forth at length," says Dr. Dewey, " 'like volcanic 
fires, with spontaneous, original, native force ? ' It only 
shows the intenser action of the elements beneath. 
What though it breaks like lightning from the cloud? 
The electric fire had been collecting in the firmament 
throuo'h man" a silent, calm and clear day." 



CHAPTER XII. 



GENIUS IN DEBATE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE GREAT ORATORS. 

THE arena of debate, which has always been magi- 
cally attractive to youthful minds, is that in which 
most of our eminent public men, past and present, 
have won their title to fame. It is perhaps the most 
favorable of all arenas for receiving public recognition 
of talent and those large honors and emoluments that 
flow from public employment. There are probably no 
names that occupy a more enviable place in modern 
history, or that are dearer to the hearts of their country- 
men, than those of Chatham and Burke, Grattan and 
O'Connell, Mirabeau and Gambetta, Patrick Henry and 
Samuel Adams, Clay and Webster, Lincoln and Garfield. 
The noble sentiments they expressed and the heroic 
stand they took on momentous occasions have won 
for them imperishable renown ; and the record of the 
words they spoke on these occasions has fascinated, 
and will continue to fascinate, all noble minds for 
ages to come. 

No wonder, therefore, that the aspiring youth is 
captivated by the career of a successful orator; no 
wonder that he looks upon such a career as peerless 
in its opportunities for fame. What ideal can be 
more fascinating to a young man than that of com- 
manding the attention of the listening Senate in the 



GENIUS IN DEBATE. 101 

evening, and having his words flashed over the coun- 
try and eagerly read by the whole nation on the 
following morning? What position can be more cap- 
tivating to such a youth than that of representing 
his native State in the great Council of the nation — 
of speaking and acting in the name and for the in- 
terest of millions of his countrymen? There is in 
fact no grander career than this; for he who speaks 
effectively in the Senate chamber commands perhaps 
the most far-reaching influence of any man on this 
earth : he not only helps to make laws which influ- 
ence for good or ill millions of his countrymen of 
his own generation, but of the generations to come ; 
he stamps the impress of his mind on the masses 
of his own day and on all those who come after 
him. Neither the lawyer nor the clergyman, neither 
the physician nor the professor, has any influence at 
all comparable to that of the statesman. Of the orator, 
more emphatically than of any other, may it truly be 
said, "though dead, he yet speaketh." Who has not 
been influenced by some of Chatham's, or Burke's, or 
Webster's speeches ? Who that has any taste for litera- 
ture has not stored up in his memory or engraved on 
his heart some of the nobler passages m the speeches 
of the great orators of antiquity? 

There are some episodes in the lives of great ora- 
tors that are particularly striking. One of Sheridan's 
famous triumphs was of a triple nature. On the 
same evenmg that he held Parliament spell-bound by 
his eloquence, two other audiences were listenmg with 
rapt attention to his superb comedies, the "Rivals" 
and the "School for Scandal." This was brilliant; 
but there is something of Sheridonian art about it all. 



102 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

Edmund Burke, pronouncing his transcendent speech 
against Warren Hastings before that noble and bril- 
liant assembly in the great hall of William Rufus, 
so fascinatingly described by Macaulay, presents one 
of the grandest figures in history. Daniel Webster, 
standing before the Senate of the United States, the 
central figure in an assembly composed of the com- 
bined representatives of the nation, and surrounded 
by persons of distinction from foreign countries and 
from all parts of the Union, pronouncing his magnifi- 
cent reply to Hayne, the matchless answer of the 
great North to the subtle, dangerous South, is an 
equally grand figure. But, to my mind, the grandest 
figure in history, the most sublime in literature, is 
that presented by Lord Chatham, as the leader oFhis 
country's policy in her palmiest days, as described 
by Grattan : 

"The secretary stood alone. Modern degeneracy had not 
reached him. Original and unaccommodating, the features of 
his character had the hardihood of antiquity. His august mind 
overawed majesty ; and one of his sovereigns thought royalty so 
impaired in his presence, that he conspired to remove him, in 
order to be relieved from his superiority. No state chicanery, 
no narrow system of vicious politics, sunk him to the level of 
the vulgar great ; but, overbearing, persuasive, and impracti- 
cable, his object was England ; his ambition, fame. Without di- 
viding, he destroyed party : without corrupting, he made a venal 
age unanimous. Prance sank beneath him. With one hand he 
smote the house of Bourbon, and with the other he wielded the 
democracy of England. The scope of his mind was infinite ; and 
his schemes were to affect, not England alone, not the present 
age only, but Europe and posterity. Wonderful were the means 
by which these schemes were accomplished ; always seasonable, 
always adequate, the suggestions of an understanding animated 
by ardor and enlightened by prophecy. 



GENIUS IN DEBATE. lOj 

"A character so exalted, so nnsuUied, so various, so authorita- 
tive, astonished a corrupt age, and the Treasury trembled at the 
name of Pitt through all the classes of venality. Corruption 
imagined, indeed, that she had found defects in this statesman, 
and talked much of the inconsistency of his policy, and much of 
the ruin of his victories ; but the history of his country and the 
calamities of the enemy answered and refuted her. Nor were his 
political abilities his only talents ; his eloquence was an era in 
the Senate, peculiar and spontaneous, familiarly expressing gi- 
gantic sentiments and instinctive wisdom ; not like the torrent 
of Demosthenes, or the splendid conflagration of TuUy ; it re- 
sembled sometimes the thunder, sometimes the music of the 
spheres. He did not, like Mansfield, conduct the understanding 
through the painful subtlety of argumentation ; nor was he, like 
Townsend, forever on the rack of exertion ; but rather lightened 
upon the subject, and reached the point by the flashings of his 
mind, which, like those of his eye, were felt, but could not be fol- 
lowed. Upon the whole, there was in this man something that 
could create, subvert, or reform ; an understanding, a spirit, and 
an eloquence to summon mankind to united exertion, or to 
break the bonds of slavery asunder, and to rule the wilderness of 
free minds with unbounded authority ; something that could es- 
tablish or overwhelm an empire, and strike a blow in the world 
that would resound through the universe." 

How contemptible, how utterly despicable the per- 
fidious, plotting assassins, the cut-throat Napoleons 
look beside such a man ! And how ineffably des- 
picable the reverend slave, their American historian, 
Abbott, who could deify and worship such scoundrels ! 
The life of such a man as Chatham, like that of Wash- 
ington, confers a precious boon, not only on his country- 
men, but on mankind. For the lives of the truly great 
are the quickeners of virtue and patriotism. "No man," 
said a soldier of his time, "ever entered Mr. Pitt's closet 
who did not feel himself a braver man when he came 
out. " And no man who reads Mr. Pitt's life (and I beg 



104 CULTURE BY SELP-HELP. 

the reader not to confound him with Pitt the younger) 
can fail to become a better man than he was before. 
Can any one affirm this of the Napoleons? Are not 
both of them steeped in blood, cruelty, and treachery ? 
Had Chatham been prime minister of England at the 
time of our American Revolution, there would have 
been no "Stamp Act," no "Duty on tea, painters' 
colors, and glass;" none of the stupid blunders com- 
mitted by Lord North. It was Chatham who declared 
to Parliament that the colonists were, like themselves, 
the heirs of British liberty, cradled and trained in free- 
dom, and absolutely unconquerable; that were he an 
American, as he was an Englishman, he would "never 
lay down his arms while a foreign troop was quartered 
on his native soil; never, never, never!" 

We have a score of Americans, now among the im- 
mortals, who may be worthily compared to Chatham. 
Notably among these are Washington and Hamilton, 
Lincoln and Stanton; but whom have we to-day to 
compare with such a man? We have fallen upon the 
venal age of the great orator, without one single, stead- 
fast luminary to relieve the deadly darkness of corrup- 
tion; an age when Wealth has grasped everything in 
her hands, and the high places of the nation, the seats 
of Webster, Clay, and Sumner, once consecrated to 
genius, virtue, and patriotism, are bargained for and 
sold to the highest bidder. It has been well observed 
that when Carl Schurz represented his State in the Senate, 
we knew what Missouri had to say on every important 
question ; but who knows even the name of the man 
who represents her to-day? 

I have placed the name of Lincoln among those of 
the great orators. Most men think of Lincoln, not as 



GENIUS IN DEBATffl. IO5 

an orator, but as a wise ruler, a large-hearted states- 
man, a great chief magistrate, whose name finds fit as- 
sociation with that of Washington ; but he was one of 
the greatest orators this country ever produced ; and if 
you want a proof of this, you will find it in the debate 
between Lincoln and Douglas in the Illinois contest for 
the United States Senatorship in 1858; a debate in 
which you will see, not one, but two intellectual giants 
struggling for the mastery. 

For free, natural, spontaneous eloquence ; for strong 
argument and matchless fascination of manner, com- 
mend me to Robert G. Ingersoll — I do not know any 
living orator to equal him. Such a continuous stream 
of free-flowing, living thought, of bold, noble senti- 
ments, expressed in strong, every-day English, is not 
found in any other speaker of our day. O, that the 
sons of Toil could capture him, convert him to their 
faith, and make him the expounder and defender of 
their cause! They would then have an orator who 
would make their cause as popular, as interesting, as 
surely victorious as Wendell Phillips made the anti- 
slavery cause. Ingersoll's Cooper Institute speech in 
favor of Garfield, in the Garfield-Hancock campaign, is 
the finest political oration I ever heard or read in my 
life. What forcible, convincing, consummate argu- 
ments ! What marvellously rich illustrations ! and 
what an accumulation of proofs in support of his argu- 
ment ! What enthusiastic good feeling he aroused, and 
how completely and easily he carried his audience 
along with him ! What a crowning triumph to pro- 
nounce a speech that is accompanied by one round of 
enthusiastic and re-echoing applause from beginning 
to end! 



Io6 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

Webster's power as an orator was founded on great 
natural ability, developed by a liberal education, and 
strengthened and ennobled by constant and varied 
study. Nothing came amiss to him ; like all great 
men, he drew upon all sources to improve and enlarge 
the powers of his mind. His language, his images, his 
whole style has something of classic purity about it ; 
his figures and illustrations are drawn from the noblest 
sources ; his sentences are strong, forcible, polished ; 
his manner is highly dignified and impressive ; and his 
power of seizing and disposing of the salient points in 
an argument unequalled. For great mental power, 
sound logical reasoning, and classic purity of style, 
Webster stands unrivalled. It was his large literary 
culture that enabled him to give such noble expression 
to those patriotic sentiments which have rendered his 
speeches the admiration of every citizen and the fa- 
vorite declamation of every student of oratory. While 
Calhoun dealt in cool logical syllogisms, which none 
but lawyers could fully appreciate, Webster appealed to 
those warm and generous sentiments which all can ap- 
preciate — love of country, pride in its honor and pros- 
perity, and anxiety for its preservation — -sentiments 
which find an echo in every true American heart. 

The only orator of modern times who can at all be 
compared to him is Edmund Burke ; yet Burke's schol- 
arly, richly suggestive and philosophic speeches had 
often the effect, unlike Webster's, of emptying the halls 
-of legislation in which they were delivered. Burke 
seems to have soared above the heads of his audience ; 
Webster attracted his hearers, lifted them up to his re- 
gion of thought, and carried them along with him. 

"Does it read well.? If it does, it is a bad speech I" 



GENIUS IN DEBATE. IO7 

said Charles James Fox concerning a recently delivered 
speech. Measured by this standard, Webster was infe- 
rior to Clay, whose speeches do not read so well as the 
former's. Clay, however, had such a marvellously win- 
ning- way with him, that few could withstand his appeals ; 
and I have no doubt that his speeches were even more 
effective than those of the g-reat expounder of the 
Constitution. 

"Of narrow education," says a writer in The Voice, 
"bred in no very polished society, and never much 
given to reading, Henry Clay's culture was gathered 
chiefly from the society of the people with whom he 
came in contact, and from the enterprises in which 
he was engaged. We shall look in vain, in his reported 
speeches, for scholastic beauties or literary gems ; in 
vain for affluent imagery or polished periods. No ; his 
eloquence was fed from other fountains. His words 
were picked up from a few books and from many men ; 
some of them good, some bad, like the variety of hu- 
man nature which he had fallen in with. He shook 
hands with the hunters of the West and the scholars of 
the East ; with wagon-boys from Ohio and presidents 
from Virginia ; and from them all he had gathered and 
garnered up his common but copious vocabulary. He 
spoke as the battle of debate demanded : instant, fer- 
vid, to the very point of the moment. He had no time 
for preparation, for choice diction, for culled periods. 
His power lay hidden in his lofty and Roman-like 
character, and in his fervid sensibility ; and his appeals 
were always to the nobler thoughts and the loftier pas- 
sions of men." 

Frenchmen and Spaniards have more of the whirl- 
wind in their speeches than Englishmen or Americans ; 



lo8 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

consequently their orators surpass all others in ra- 
pidity, vehemence, and sublimity of utterance. Just 
listen to Mr. John Hay's admirable description of the 
eloquence of Castelar : 

"Whatever may be said of his enduring influence 
upon legislation, there can be no difference of opinion 
in regard to his transcendent gifts as an orator. There 
is something almost superhuman in his delivery. He is 
the only man I have ever seen who produces, in very 
truth, those astounding effects which I have always 
thought the inventions of poets and the exaggerations 
of biographers. When you have heard Castelar, the 
'torrent of Demosthenes' and 'the conflagration of 
Tully' cease to be unmeaning metaphors. His speech 
is like a torrent in its inconceivable fluency, like a raging 
fire in its brilliancy of color and terrible energy of pas- 
sion. Never for an instant is the wonderful current of 
declamation checked by the pauses, the hesitations, the 
deliberations that mark all Anglo-Saxon debate. An 
entire oration will be delivered with precisely the fluent 
energy which a veteran actor exhibits in his most pas- 
sionate scenes ; and when you consider that this is not 
conned beforehand, but is struck off instantly, in the 
very heat and spasm of utterance, it seems little short 
of inspiration. And yet so perfect is his diction, that 
the most fastidious rhetorician could not produce pe- 
riods of more exquisite harmony, antitheses more sharp 
and shining, metaphors more neatly fitting, all uttered 
with a distinct rapidity that makes the despair of stenog- 
raphers. His memory, which is under perfect discipline, 
is prodigious, and he has the world's history at his 
tongue's end. No fact is too insignificant to be retained 
nor too stale to do service. " 



CHAPTER XIII. 



DEBATE AND DEBATING SOCIETIES. 

TO a young man seeking intellectual development 
and the power of persuasive speech, there is per- 
haps no more profitable exercise than that of 
debate, and no more excellent school than a debating- 
society. Such a society is usually composed of young 
men who are desirous of cultivating and strengthen- 
ing their intellectual powers by friendly contact with 
other minds, by the free exchange of ideas in conver- 
sation, by rational discussion and literary exercises. 
Now all the exercises of a debating society, the inter- 
change of thought on the questions of the day, the 
exciting debate on special subjects, the quick reply 
and the flashing retort, the spirited declamation, the ani- 
mated dialogue, and the pointed enforcement of parlia- 
mentary rules — all these have a most salutary effect on 
the mind, rousing ambition to excel, kindling the mind 
into a blaze of generous enthusiasm, and exciting a 
love of study, of literature and eloquence, such as no 
other exercises can excite. When I hear of a young 
man joining a debating society, I know that to him 
the period of mental awakening has come, and that 
his further intellectual development, be his opportuni- 
ties what they may, is only a question of time. 



no CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

Societies of this kind spring up spontaneously among 
the aspiring youth of our country; for the freedom of 
our institutions encourages the expression of thought 
and the cultivation of eloquence. No people has so 
much to do with public affairs and public speaking as 
ours, and everybody knows that power as a public 
speaker leads to positions of honor and influence. The 
chief reason why the profession of the law has such 
fascination for so many of our young men is because it 
brings them into the arena of debate, and thence on to 
the most influential positions in the nation. Probably 
more than half of our public men, our Congressmen 
and State Senators, come out of this single profession. 
Unlike the merchant's career, there are elements of 
battle in that of the lawyer ; attack, defence, skirmish, 
stratagem, surprise, sudden onslaught, victory, or de- 
feat; and intellectual victories are the noblest of all 
victories. Even our boys in school take an eager in- 
terest in debate; for it is like a game that has some- 
thing of the nature of a trial of strength in it. I well 
remember the interesting weekly debate which was 
carried on by the boys of the highest class of the Ho- 
boken Academy. I had turned one lesson into the 
regular exercises of a debating society, with all the for- 
mality of president, vice-president, secretary, critic, 
and editor, and I found this exercise one of the most 
interesting apd profitable in the whole curriculum ; one 
to which the boys looked forward with keen anticipa- 
tions of pleasure, for which they always carefully pre- 
pared themselves, and to which they subsequently 
looked back, long after leaving school, with feelings of 
pleasure and satisfaction. 

There are few good speakers who have not been ma- 



DEBATE AND DEBATING SOCIETIES. Ill 

terially benefited by practice of this sort. If you dip 
into the lives of our modern English and American po- 
litical leaders, you will find that most of them enjoyed 
its advantages. Sir Francis Doyle says that nearly all 
his school-fellows, among whom were a remarkably 
large number of young men who attained distinction as 
speakers and statesmen, took a lively interest in the 
College Debating Society. "Had it not been for the 
Debating Society," he says, "where our wits were 
sharpened by daily collisions and where we made 
more way, unless I am greatly mistaken, than in school, 
I should have known nothing of Mr. Gladstone or of 
my beloved friend Arthur Hallam ; nothing of Bruce, 
afterwards Lord Elgin ; of Wentworth, who became the 
elder Lord Milton ; of Canning, the future prime minis- 
ter; of Selwin, Pickering, Sir John Hanmer, Milnes, 
Gaskell, and many others — all these would have been 
equally out of my ken." Had that master of language 
and style, Edward Gibbon, practiced in such a society 
in his youth, he would not have sat for eight years a 
member of the House of Commons without ever open- 
ing his mouth in debate. 

To the young man ambitious of shining in public 
affairs, connection with a debating society is a neces- 
sity ; it is to him a veritable intellectual gymnasium ; 
a drilling-ground in which he acquires the power of 
marshalling his troops in regular order, of placing his 
forces in solid phalanx against those of the enemy. 
Here he will get a practical knowledge of his own 
powers and considerable knowledge of those of others. 
His timidity will be lessened; his diffidence changed 
into manly self-confidence. If he have anything of the 
fire of genius in him, here it will show itself; here it 



112 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

will burst into flame ; for it is in such encounters that 
dormant qualities are struck into life. As in the heat of 
battle, many a man, little suspected of heroic qualities, 
turns out a hero; so in the ardor of debate, many a 
man, little suspected of oratorical powers, turns out an 
orator. When the soul is once touched, or stirred into 
life, thoughts and feelings come rushing into the mind 
like a mountain torrent ; utterance becomes a necessity, 
and speech flows as naturally as breathing; then the 
man speaks, not merely with his tongue, but with ev- 
ery fibre of his body. For the true orator, says Reeves, 
"is one who /eels what he utters, and who, abandoning 
all art and artifice, gives unrestrained expression to what 
he feels." 

Let me say a word to the young debater : Never get 
up to speak before you know what you are going to 
say. When you have nothing to say, say it. It is all 
moonshine to trust to the spur of the moment. The 
spur of the moment will probably make you say some- 
thing stupid or ridiculous — something you will regret 
having said at all. Lord Cockburn tells of a man who, 
having been unexpectedly requested to give a toast at 
a public dinner, cast about for something fine, and then 
gave : "Here's to the moon, shining on the calm bo- 
som of the lake ! " 

If you want to become clear and definite in your 
views on any subject, the best thing you can do is to 
state your views to somebody, to talk about them, and 
hear what others have to say about them. This is 
the exercise of the debating society. Discussion is a 
sort of ordeal in which a man's sound views are con- 
firmed and his spurious ones destroyed. In short, the 
debating society is a school where young people learn 



DEBATE AND DEBATING SOCIETIES. II3 

to walk, run, fly and soar in debate ; where they ac- 
quire such mastery in the use of the faculties necessary 
for discussion, that when the time comes for serious 
effort, they will employ these faculties to much greater 
advantage than if they had never practiced at all. For 
every debate involves, as a necessity, a certain prepa- 
ration ; and every preparation involves, as a necessity, 
the examination of evidence, the sifting of facts, the 
drawing of inferences, and the forming of a judgment ; 
and these develop the faculty of logical thinking, which 
is the basis of all persuasive power in speech. 

There are some writers and speakers — the most te- 
dious and unprofitable living — who trust to the last 
word of each sentence for inspiring the next. Mr. E. 
E. Hale tells of a Sunday school orator who used to 
begin a speech without the slightest idea of what he 
was going to say, and go on thus : " My dear young 
friends, I do not know that I have anything to say to 
you, but I am very much obliged to your teachers for 
asking me to address you this beautiful Sunday morn- 
ing. — The morning is so beautiful after the refreshment 
of the night, that, as I walked to church, and looked 
around, and breathed the fresh air, I felt more than ever 
what a privilege it is to live in so wonderful a world. 
— For the world, dear children, has been all conti^ived 
and set in order for us by a Power so much higher than 
our own, that we might enjoy our own lives and live 
for the happiness and good of our brothers and sisters. 
— Our brothers and our sisters they are indeed, though 
some of them are in distant lands, and beneath other 
skies, and parted from us by the broad oceans. — These 
oceans, indeed," etc., etc. Now a man may speak like 
that for days without making anybody the wiser — he 



il4 CtJLTtrRE BY SELF-SEL?. 

might speak against time, and win every time. But 
that is all his speech would be good for. I remember 
having a gentleman pointed out to me — I think his name 
is Luke Cozzens — who, in the New York Assembly, spoke 
for five hours against a certain bill in order to kill it by 
speaking till the session was over. I can hardly im- 
agine how he did it except by the method of the Sun- 
day school orator. 

Archbishop Whately, in the introduction to his well 
known work on Logic, advises the student to avoid 
debating societies, as places whose exercises conduce 
to superficiality of thought, shallow views of men and 
things, and flippancy in the expression of those views. 
I quote from memory. These are not his exact words, 
but this is, I think, his thought. The archbishop might 
as well advise the youth who wishes to learn to swim 
to avoid shallow places, and plunge at once into deep 
water. This, however, h what I take to be the surest 
way to get drowned, literally and figuratively; for he 
who expects to become, by study alone, an orator at 
one bound, — to be able, on his first attempt, to make a 
first-class speech, — will assuredly find that he has made 
a grand mistake, and retire in confusion from the scene 
of his exploit. A man may become a good reader of 
essays by study alone ; but he will never make speeches 
or become an orator. An orator must be able — and 
nothing but constant practice in debate will enable him 
to do it — to think as freely and easily while standing 
before an audience as when sitting in his study ; nay, 
the audience must give him a certain inspiration which 
he will seek in vain in his study, and this inspiration 
will enable him to carry his audience along with him 
to the goal he is aiming at. For when the orator 



DEBATE AND DEBATING SOCIETIES. II5 

touches the hearts of his hearers, there is a sort of elec- 
tric flash of sympathetic feeling that passes from them 
to him ; and thus they give each other support and in- 
spiration. 

The archbishop makes a serious mistake. Though 
the talk of young people is more or less superficial, the 
arguments of opponents in debate are not lost on the 
young debater. No matter what he may say on the 
floor in opposition to sound arguments, he cannot escape 
feeling them ; he cannot help noticing them ; he cannot 
help being impressed by them ; he cannot help thinking 
of them, and they will inevitably stimulate him to fur- 
ther thought and study. Gradually, by all this listen- 
ing, thinking, reading, speaking, and reflecting, he will 
come to reason more cogently and accurately; to ex- 
amine more sharply and thoughtfully ; to look below 
the surface of things and grasp the salient points of an 
argument ; he will come to consider what can be said 
for, as well as against a proposition, and to make up 
his mind on which side lie truth and justice. And the 
delight of independent thinking and free speaking, once 
tasted, will not be likely to be given up for less noble 
pursuits ; nor will he be satisfied with anything less 
than real ability as a thinker and speaker. 

By the practice of debate, he will learn to express his 
thought in plain, forcible language. He will use the 
words of talk, not those of elaborate literary composi- 
tion, with which no man ever moved an audience. For 
the words of a spoken speech are as different from those 
of a written speech as the words of an elaborate essay 
are different from those of every-day talk. Compare, 
for instance. Dr. Johnson's talk, as reported by Boswell, 
with his printed works, and you will get an idea of the 



Il6 CULTURE BY SELF-HEL?, 

difference at once. Talking one day of a certain play, 
Johnson said, "It has not wit enough to keep it 
sweet ; " then, after a pause, ' ' It has not vitality 
enough to preserve it from putrefaction." This last 
was his written style; the former, his spoken style; 
which is by far the better. ' ' I am fond, " says Edward 
Everett Hale, "of telling the story of the words which 
a distinguished friend of mine used in accepting a hard 
post of duty. He said: 'I do not think I am fit for 
this post. But my friends say I am, and I trust them. 
I shall take it ; and when I am in it I shall do as well 
as I can.' It is a very grand speech," continues Mr. 
Hale. "Observe that it has not one word which is 
more than one syllable. As it happens, too, every 
word is Saxon — there is not one spurt of Latin in it. 
Yet this was a learned man, who, if he chose, could 
have said the whole in Latin. But he was an Ameri- 
can gentleman talking to another American gentleman, 
and he therefore chose to use the tongue to which they 
both were born. " 

"Why is it," says Sam Slick, "that if you read a 
book to a man you set him to sleep ? Just because it's 
a book, and the language ain't common. Why is it, if 
you talk to him, he will sit up all night with you ? Just 
because it's talk, the language of nature." 

Let me conclude with a good example of the benefits 
which may be derived from practice in a debating 
society. To one who knows what Curran was as an 
orator, his own account of his first attempt to make 
a speech at a debating club must be quite astonishing ; 
and to one who is naturally timid, it must be uncom- 
monly encouraging. An acquaintance of his, in speak- 
ing of eloquence, observed that it must have been born 



DEBATE AND DEBATING SOCIETIES, I17 

with him. "Indeed, my dear sir," replied Curran, "it 
was not ; it was born some three and twenty years 
and some months after me ; and if you are satisfied to 
listen to a dull historian, you shall have the history of 
its nativity. When I was at the Temple, a few of us 
formed a little debating club. Upon the first night of 
meeting which I attended, my foolish heart throbbing 
with the anticipated honor of being styled 'the learned 
member who opened the debate,' or 'the very eloquent 
gentleman who has just sat down,' I stood up. The 
question was the Catholic claims or the slave trade, I 
protest I now forget which ; but the difference, you 
know, was not very obvious — my mind was stored 
with about a folio volume of matter, but I wanted a 
preface, and for want of a preface the volume was 
never published. I stood up, trembling through every 
fibre ; but remembering that in this I was but imitating 
Tully, I took courage, and had actually proceeded al- 
most as far as 'Mr. Chairman,' when, to my astonish- 
ment and terror, I perceived that every eye was turned 
on me. There were only six or seven present, and the 
room could not have contained as many more ; yet was 
it, to my panic-stricken imagination, as if I were the 
central object in nature, and assembled millions were 
gazing upon me in breathless expectation. I became 
dismayed and dumb. My friends cried, ' Hear him ! ' 
but there was nothing to hear. My lips indeed went 
through the pantomime of articulation ; but I was like 
the unfortunate fiddler at the fair, who, upon coming to 
strike up the solo that was to ravish every ear, discov- 
ered that an enemy had maliciously soaped his bow. 
So you see, sir, it was not born with me. However, 
though my friends despaired of me" — they had nick- 



1 1 8 CULtURE :6Y SELF-HELP. 

named him Orator Mum — "the caco'ethes loquendi was 
not to be subdued without a struggle. I was for the 
present silenced, but I still attended the meetings with 
the most laudable regularity, and even ventured to ac- 
company the others to a more ambitious theatre, the 
club of Temple Bar. One of them was upon his legs ; 
a fellow of whom it was difficult to decide whether he 
was more distinguished for the filth of his person or the 
flippancy of his tongue — just such another as Harry 
Flood would have called 'the highly gifted gentleman 
with the dirty shirt and greasy pantaloons.' I found 
this learned personage in the act of culminating chro- 
nology by the most preposterous anachronisms. He 
descanted upon Demosthenes, the glory of the Roman 
forum — spoke of Tully as the famous contemporary and 
rival of Cicero — and, in the short space of one half hour, 
transported the Straits of Marathon three several times 
to the plains of Thermopylae. Thinking that I had a 
right to know something of these matters, I looked at 
him with surprise. When our eyes met, there was 
something like a wager of battle in mine ; upon which 
the erudite gentleman instantly changed his invective 
against antiquity into an invective against me, and con- 
cluded by a few words of friendly counsel (Jiorresco 
refer ens) to 'Orator Mum,' who, he doubted not, pos- 
sessed wonderful talents for eloquence, although he 
would recommend him to show it in future by some 
more popular method than his silence. I followed his 
advice, and, I believe, not entirely without effect. So, 
sir, you see that, to try the bird, the spur must touch 
his blood." 

After this Curran took indefatigable pains to make 
himself a good speaker. He corrected his habit of 



DEBATE AND DEBATING SOCIETIES. 119 

stuttering by reading aloud every day, slowly and dis- 
tinctly, passages from his favorite authors; recited 
speeches and studied postures and gesticulations before 
a mirror ; debated cases at home as if he were address- 
ing a jury, and became a constant attendant at debating 
clubs. * 

* It may perhaps be worth mentioning that at the present day 
debating societies are far more common in England and Scotland 
than in this country, and that they imitate the House of Com- 
mons so closely that they actually discuss the questions before 
the same in their own manner, the members designating each 
other the honorable member from such a city, and the right 
honorable member from such a county. The House of Commons 
is the great source of strength and power in England, its power 
being so great that it can abolish the monarchy by a vote. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



SOME ACCOUNT OF A BYGONE DEBATING SOCIETY. 

IN the last chapter I spoke of the advantages of de- 
bate and debating societies. In this I shall give, 
by way of illustration, some personal reminis- 
cences of a debating society to which I once belonged. 
Well do I remember that society, the first society I 
ever joined. It was called the "Franklin Debating 
Society," and met in one of the rooms of old Clinton 
Hall, New York, where now the fine new structure of 
the Mercantile Library stands. We met in Room No 7, 
second floor, a room which remains more distinctly in 
my mind than any other room in existence. Well do I 
remember the exciting debates we had in that room, 
and equally well the looks and tones of most of the 
speakers. The society was composed of some twenty- 
five young men ; all of the middle class ; all earning 
their bread in various useful occupations, and all striv- 
ing to gain an education and a development of their 
powers such as would enable them to do good work in 
the world. The fire of ambition was glowing in most 
of those young hearts, and I know that many of them, 
filled with high hopes and noble aims, looked forward 
to the time when they would fill honorable and useful 
stations in the world. And some of them have done so. 



SOME ACCOUNT OF A BYGONE DEBATING SOCIETY. 121 

What ambitious speeches we youngsters used to 
make in those 

Onr salad days, 
When we were green in judgment I 

How fluently and confidently we declaimed on subjects 
of which we knew nothing ! What fiery harangues 
we poured out on slavery and freedom, on aristocracy 
and democracy ; on the wrongs of Ireland and the in- 
justice of England; on monarchy and republicanism; 
on Mary Queen of Scots and Elizabeth Queen of Eng- 
land ; on Hannibal, Caesar, Alexander, and Napoleon ; 
on Junius, Tom Paine and the French revolutionists ! 
We settled the world's affairs, past and present, in that 
little room in Clinton Hall, we youngsters did ; and 
some of us imagined, I have no doubt, that we could 
have arranged things much better, had we had the 
chance, than the heroes and heroines whose actions 
we discussed. 

We had our famous nights, too, as well as other de- 
liberative bodies. No one that was present, for in- 
stance, on the night on which Tom Kelly made his 
brilliant speech on the banishment of Napoleon to St. 
Helena will ever forget it. He fairly flowed out in 
genuine, moving eloquence ; he completely forgot him- 
self in the intensity of his feeling ; and, with a flood of 
indignation, he consigned to eternal infamy the re- 
morseless British ministry that "dared to treat as a 
common criminal, and banish to a barren rock in the 
distant Pacific, a distinguished general and ruler of 
France, an unhappy warrior who had voluntarily sur- 
rendered himself to the victorious but ungenerous en- 
emy ! " Then we had our literary treats, rich and racy, 
which usually consisted of a batch of anonymous 



122 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

communications, prose and poetry, and very personal, 
addressed to ' ' The Editor, " who read them aloud with 
all the energy and force he had at command; com- 
munications which, like Falstaff's speeches, were not 
only witty in themselves, but the cause of wit in others. 
Oh, those bright, joyful, happy days, when the world 
seemed rosy and beautiful, and hope animated every 
heart, how little we appreciated them ! Such a period 
comes only once in a lifetime. 

To me this was the golden age of life ; the ' most 
hopeful, the most promising, and the most free from 
care. It is pleasant to me even now to recall those 
days. I never think of them but with renewed pleas- 
ure. "Remembrance," says Richter, "is the only 
Paradise from which we cannot be driven away." 
We had so far hardly known any serious care or 
trouble, and the future seemed all brightness. Our 
heroes were brilliant parliamentary orators and shining 
political leaders; our favorite authors were historians 
and dramatic poets, and our pastimes study, conversa- 
tion, and dreams of future fame and fortune. I might 
say of those days what Cowley said of the pleasant 
days he spent with his friend Harvey : 

We spent them not in toys, in lusts, or wine; 

But search of deep philosophy. 

Wit, eloquence, and poetry ; 
Arts which I loved ; for they, my friend, were thine. 

Many have observed that the realization of high hopes 
does not bring half so much pleasure as their anticipa- 
tion ; and this we found out, too. Schiller tells us of 
a certain king who, on his death-bed, was asked by his 
appointed successor what, in all the aspects of life, had 
given him most satisfaction — what was now, as the 



SOME ACCOUNT OF A BYGONE DEBATING SOCIETY. 1 23 

curtain fell, his opinion of the great drama of life — upon 
which the dying king, opening his eyes, replied: "I 
have no satisfaction in any part of it — I have now 
nothing but contempt for everything that once seemed 
great and desirable to me." 

There were some among those young orators who 
have since attained positions of importance in the 
world; and there are three or four whose career, not 
yet ended, will, I trust, shine all the brighter the nearer 
they approach its close. There were a few who, even 
then, were regarded among ourselves as persons of dis- 
tinction ; and we were confident that nothing but time 
and opportunity were needed to cause all the world 
to esteem them as much as we did. There was, for 
instance, the Critic, brave-hearted Michael Ducey, a 
bright, enthusiastic youth of seventeen or eighteen 
years, who declaimed in the style of Pitt, in high-flown 
and sonorous sentences, and who wrote such fearless 
and trenchant criticisms of the performances of the 
others, that he often roused the ire and gained the 
enmity of those whom he assailed. What a marvel- 
lously clever boy he was, and what a prodigious stock 
of learning he had at command ! How my heart used 
to flutter when he rose to read his high-sounding criti- 
cisms ! and with what admiration I used to listen to his 
grandiloquent speeches ! I believe I used to look at 
him and listen to his speeches with as much admiration 
and respect as ever follower of Pitt or Fox looked at 
and listened to his great leader ; and I believe most of 
the other members regarded him in the same way. 
He was our "head boy;" and I may say with Thack- 
eray: "I have seen great men in my time, but never 
such a great one as that head boy of my boyhood ; we 



124 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

all thought he must become prime minister, and I was 
disappointed on meeting him in after life to find he 
was no more than six feet high." 

A self-taught lad, earning his bread as a clerk in the 
law office of Richard Busteed, Esq., Corporation Coun- 
sel of New York, Ducey had acquired a considerable 
fund of literary and legal lore, and possessed such a 
marvellous fluency of speech, together with such an 
imposing air and tone in his delivery, that he seemed 
to me a born orator, destined to mould the minds of 
men and 

Th' applause of listening senates to command. 

But "past is all his fame; the very spot, where many a 
time he triumphed, is forgot." Clinton Hall has just 
been taken down, and a new and stately edifice put in 
its place. 

When the Civil War broke out, Ducey entered the 
army, and fell in one of the first battles, leaving a 
widowed mother and many that loved him to mourn 
his untimely fate. Had he lived, he would, I am sure, 
have attained eminence in his profession. 

There was Ducey's great opponent, the uneasy, irri- 
table, fiery-tempered Cunningham, the Hotspur of the 
Society, who was always in trouble with somebody; 
and there was his opposite, the smooth-mannered and 
silver-tongued Smith, who was suspected, however, of 
being the author of half the anonymous communications 
to the Editor. There was the well-informed but impet- 
uous and Church-loving Keiley, who never rose to 
address the meeting without speaking to the point and 
hitting the nail right on the head ; so strong a speaker, 
that on whichever side Keiley went. Victory was almost 
sure to light. There, too, was the redoubtable Adam 



SOME ACCOUNT OF A BYGONE DEBATING SOCIETY. 1 25 

Cameron, a short, strongly-built, dark-haired and dark- 
eyed lad, with a cool, witty, and fearless style of ad- 
dress, dreaded among us for his power in ridicule, and 
always strong in reply. I took good care to do my 
best whenever Cameron was to follow me ; for I had 
felt his power ; and dreaded him more than any other. 
He never seemed to make any preparation for the de- 
bate, and always looked as if he paid no attention to 
what was going on ; but no sooner had he got on his feet 
than he showed that he had been listening all the time, 
and that nothing had escaped him. He had quietly 
noted and weighed every argument pro and con, and 
had made up his mind which side to take and what to 
say. After toying with his opponents for a while, pok- 
ing fun at one after another, he would come down on 
some one with such crushing logic that refutation was 
impossible. Ridicule, satire, wit — these were his forte. 
He knew that there is no better way of destroying the 
force of an argument than by making it ridiculous, and 
he had a knack of turning everything into ridicule. 
Many a time did he convulse the assembly by the far- 
cical twist he would give to their arguments ; many a 
time did he turn the most seemingly innocent observa- 
tion in the world into the "height of the ridiculous." 
When, on one occasion, the question was, "Which is 
more beautiful, Nature or Art?" and some one spoke 
with admiration of Powers' Greek Slave, Cameron an- 
swered : "The gentleman has cited the statue of the 
Greek Slave as an example of supreme beauty. Well, 
it is very beautiful, and I admire it too; but who will 
deny that a handsome woman, deshabil/ee, is far more 
beautiful and far more interesting than the finest marble 
statue of a Greek slave or a Greek goddess.? Will the 



126 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

gentleman affirm that the cold marble can compare 
with the bewitching beauty of life? For my part, I 
would rather look on the real than on the imitation, on 
the perfection of nature than on the imperfection of art ; 
and I am sure that even the modest admirer of the 
Greek Slave would, if he had a chance, prefer to gaze 
on the animate rather than on the inanimate form of 
beauty; on the ravishing lineaments of nature rather 
than the cold, timid, incomplete beauty of art." Such 
sallies were, of course, unanswerable. 

Cameron subsequently attained wealth, station, and 
reputation as the inventor and manufacturer of the now 
celebrated Cameron Steam Pump ; he became president 
of a bank, the owner of a great machine-shop, employ- 
ing hundreds of workmen (and, by the way, I remem- 
ber he gave lo per cent, of his profits to his workmen), 
and attained power and influence in various circles. 
When he married, he made the grand tour of Europe in 
first-class style, staying for many months a"t the great 
centres of civilization, and enjoying all that wealth and 
leisure could afford. 

Unfortunately, however, he had begun too late to 
take life easy, and did not live long to enjoy his suc- 
cess. Years before, he had, by working for nearly a 
whole week without rest or sleep at the repairing of 
some huge steam presses, contracted a pulmonary dis- 
ease which he was never able to shake off, and died 
at the early age of thirty-three. 

Then there was Tom Creamer — the tall, handsome, 
persuasive Tom — noted for the great sweep of his arm 
and the merry twinkle of his eye. Tom attained the 
highest political honors of any member of the Society, 



SOME ACCOUNT OF A BYGONE DEBATING SOCIETY. IZj 

having become State Senator and Member of Congress. 
He was at this time merely a clerk at the retail estab- 
lishment of A. T. Stewart & Co. , and I have heard that 
when Mr. Stewart dismissed him for some insubordi- 
nate act or word, Tom turned on him and exclaimed, 
defiantly, "Mr. Stewart, you will come and seek my 
assistance before I ever return to seek yours ! " And 
this prediction was literally fulfilled ; for when Tom 
entered the Senate he became a leader in that body, 
and Mr. Stewart, having a bill before the legislature in 
which he was particularly interested, came and asked 
Tom to aid him in getting it passed ! 

A great reader of romances and plays, Tom was not 
only a good debater, but a tolerably good actor; for 
I remember seeing him play with fair success the role 
of Othello in an amateur company. Subsequently he 
studied law ; became a member of the New York bar ; 
then an active politician and public speaker ; a member 
of the Assembly ; a member of the Senate ; a member of 
Congress; and an influential adviser in Democratic 
counsels. It was he who led the Young Democracy 
that rebelled against Tweed, with the view of getting 
rid of the Boss and securing independent action in Dem- 
ocratic politics. Would that he had stuck to that side 
of the house ! But, unhappily, Tweed, who was too 
strong for him, conquered ; and the Young Democracy, 
with Tom at their head, fell into line. When Tweed 
was overthrown, Tom fell with him, the crash of 1873 
swept away his fortune, and he was not again heard 
of for some time. I remember hearing him say, in 
his prosperous days, "If you want to make a fortune, 
go and buy some of those duck-ponds around Central 



128 



CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 



Park : they will turn you in more gold than the lamp of 
Aladdin ! " Unfortunately, the duck-ponds took another 
turn in 1873, and worked the other way ! Tom, how- 
ever, is still in the prime of life, and may yet be capable 
of great things. 

There, too, was Tom Stapleton, whose single effort at 
eloquence earned him, if I mistake not, the sobriquet of 
"Single-speech Stapleton ! " Of his subsequent career I 
know nothing. And there was Johnnie Nagle, whose 
striking, manly figure and modest demeanor are the 
most notable things about him that remain in my 
memory. Johnnie has since earned an enviable repu- 
tation as a physician and health-inspector, and is now, 
I believe, Dr. John Nagle, Health Officer of the City of 
New York. 

Last, but not least, there was yet another — 

A dearer one 
Still, and a nearer one 
Yet than all other ; — 

whose name I scarcely dare to mention, so painful are 
the emotions which his unhappy fate still excites in the 
breasts of his kindred ; but whom I cannot leave alto- 
gether unnoticed — a .bright, manly, handsome youth, 
who bore an honorable part in the proceedings, and 
who was esteemed and loved by every member of the 
Society ; whose energetic and upright character seemed 
to mark him out for a successful and beneficent career, 
and whose kindly and genial nature, endearing him to 
all who knew him, will cause his name long to be 
remembered: I mean my unfortunate brother, David 
B. Waters, whose tragic fate at the burning of the 
Academy of Music suddenly ended the happiest period 



SOME ACCOUNT OF A BYGONE DEBATINS SOCIETY. 1 29 

of my life, and cast a mournful shadow over the lives 
of all who were near and dear to him. 

For men must work, and women must weep, 
Though storms be sudden, and waters deep, 
And the harbor bar be moaning. 

Oh, happy, innocent, ambitious days ! would that I 
could call you back and live you over again, with a 
little of the wisdom I have since learned from sad ex- 
perience I But that cannot be, and no doubt it is well 
as it is. 



CHAPTER XV. 



ROMANCE IN REAL LIFE AN ILLUSTRATION. 

WE seldom think so highly of those things that 
occur before our eyes as of those of which we 
read. Scenes drawn from the imagination seem 
to captivate us more than those drawn from nature. 
This is not merely because "distance lends enchant- 
ment to the view," but because we like what appeals 
strongly to the mind, and because the poet or the nov- 
elist, who is the true seer of things, has the happy 
faculty of narrating or describing fictitious events in a 
way that makes them more interesting and attractive 
than real ones. Even in real life it is only the poet 
who sees the "true inwardness" of things, and shows 
us the meaning, the motive, the object of actions and 
events which we were unable to see for ourselves. 
Robert Browning says, most beautifully : 

For don't you mark, we're made so that we love 

First when we see them painted, things we have passed 

Perhaps a hundred times, nor oared to see : 

And so they are better painted, — better to ns, 

Which is the same thing. Art was given for that — 

God used us to help each other so, 

Leading our minds out. Have you noticed now 

Your scullion's hanging face f A bit of chalk. 

And, trust me, but you should though. How much more 

If I drew higher things with the same truth ? 

That were to take the Prior's pulpit place — 

Interpret God to all of you ! 



ROMANCE IN REAL LIFE AN ILLUSTRATION. 131[ 

A single incident sets the poet's imagination a-going, 
and he sees, at once, by intuition, the whole history- 
preceding and succeeding the incident, or the whole 
chain of events to which the incident gives rise. And 
just as the sculptor, in order to make his work look life- 
like, makes a statue which is to be seen from a distance 
larger than life, so does the dramatist exaggerate to a 
certain extent the powers and passions of his charac- 
ters, that they may strike all the more forcibly or seem 
all the more natural to the spectator. 

"If you could only see the hearts of people," says 
Varnhagen von Ense, "you would find romance in the 
meanest hut. " We are constantly surrounded by won- 
derful things and wonderful occurrences which we are 
unable to see ; whole three-volume novels are passing 
every day before our eyes without our being aware of 
them. When you come into a company of gay people, 
and hear them talk, laugh, joke, and sing, you think 
you know all about them ; but how little you know of 
their interior history, of the secret aims, plans, hopes, 
and fears going on before you ! It is sometimes dis- 
covered, when the truth is known, that those who were 
looked upon as the happiest people in the world were 
really the most wretched. 

"There will always be romance in the world," says 
Bovee, "so long as there are young hearts in it." This 
is proved by the fact that most of us, after years have 
cleared our vision, perceive that we were, in our youth, 
witnesses of or participants in events of a romantic 
nature, events worthy of being told, and now looked 
upon as far more interesting than those occurring 
around us. To the aged, the romance of life is always 
in the past. They saw great things and great men in 



13* CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

their day; but there are none such now. Seldom, 
however, do we find one able to report well what he 
has seen. More wonderful lives have been lived than 
ever have been told, A good reporter of life-scenes is 
rare. Ask any one of your acquaintance to tell you 
what he saw at the last ball or party, and note what an 
insipid, superficial affair he makes of it! "Yes, there 
were nice people there — some good dancing, charades, 
tableaux, and a nice supper — people talked a good 
deal, danced a good deal, and laughed a good deal — 
music very nice, ladies dressed very nice, and every- 
thing very nice indeed." Such a reporter has not the 
wit to see that the narration or description of a single 
incident would characterize the gathering much more 
effectually than any general account like this; for his 
account might as well be applied to any other ball or 
party as to this one. 

"Romance," says Ewing, "is the child of reality." 
Most of our best novelists and poets have been inspired 
by real events. Goethe declares himself that all his 
poems are the outcome of certain experiences and events 
in his own life, and we know that his fictitious charac- 
ters are all drawn from life. In fact, he says that no 
character in fiction will bear examination, if not drawn 
from life. The same is also the case with the char- 
acters of Fielding, Smollett, and Goldsmith : they are 
all people whom they knew in life. "To know truly," 
says Mr. Whipple, "is vividly to reproduce what is 
experienced. Knowledge, like religion, must be ex- 
perienced to be known." 

Many a time, in my own experience, have I been 
witness to incidents which might, I have thought, in 
the hands of a skilful novelist or poet, have been 



ROMANCE IN REAL LIFE — AN ILLUSTRATION. 1 33 

turned to good account. I could see the form or figure 
of a work of art, but had not the wit or the power to 
chisel it into shape. 

Here, for instance, is an incident of comparatively 
recent occurrence, which, though homely enough in 
itself, has something to my mind charming in its sim- 
plicity and unexpectedness. But, before telling it, and 
in order to whet the reader's appetite for my story, I 
shall narrate another romantic incident which my own 
has called to mind ; an incident in the life of a famous 
writer, which, though real, is as striking as anything 
conceived by a novelist. I had it from a gentleman 
whom I knew in Paris, though I do not know whence 
he derived it — probably from one of the works of the 
writer in question. 

It is well known that Jean Jacques Rousseau had, in 
his youth, like Gil Bias de Santillane, suffered many 
hardships and experienced many vicissitudes at the 
hands of Fortune ; and among the various situations 
which he filled in his younger days was that of waiter 
in a gentleman's family at Lyons. His master was a 
man of wealth and rank, and often entertained people 
of high station at his house. One day, while his mas- 
ter and mistress were entertaining a large party of 
courtly friends at dinner, a discussion arose as to the 
meaning of one of the paintings which adorned the 
walls of the banqueting hall, a painting representing 
some scene in Grecian mythology or ancient history ; 
when the host, seeing the discussion was likely to take 
an unprofitable turn, and that not one among the 
guests had any real knowledge of the matter, turned to 
Jean Jacques, whom he knew, and who was standing, 
napkin in hand, behind the chair of one of the guests, 



i34 CULTURE BY SfiLF-HELP. 

and asked him to explain the matter. Thus appealed 
to, the serving-man, much to the surprise of the noble 
company, gave a clear and concise account of the 
whole matter, an account so plain and particular that 
it settled the dispute at once and forever. 

"In what school have you studied, monsieur?" said 
one of the guests, addressing himself to Jean Jacques. 

"I have studied in many schools, monseigneur," 
replied he ; "but the school in which I studied longest 
and learned most is the school of adversity." 

That was a school, indeed, of which most of that 
audience knew little ; but they were destined to know 
more before long, especially through the exertions of 
this very man, whom they little suspected to be the 
greatest genius of his day and country, and destined to 
make all Europe ring with the fame of his writings. 
Jean Jacques had been listening to the talk of these 
noble and courtly people, and was silently making his 
observations and taking the measure of their abilities 
when he was called upon to speak. Not one of them 
ever suspected that there was "a chiel amang them 
takin' notes," and not one of them had the wit to see, 
in this dinner-table episode, the handwriting on the 
wall, foretelling their coming doom. 

It was to Rousseau's "Emile" that Carlyle referred 
when he made his scathing retort to a young aristo- 
cratic fop who, in a London assembly, expressed his 
contempt of books that contained nothing but theories 
and opinions. "In the last century," said Carlyle, with 
a look of grim scorn, "there lived a man in France 
who wrote a book that contained nothing but theories 
and opinions, which the nobility of that day declared 
to be all stuff and nonsense; but it is an incident of 



ROMANCE IN REAL LIFE AN ILLUSTRATION. 1 35 

history that their skins went to the binding of the 
second edition of that book ! " 

There is one instance of homage to genius — one of 
the most noble and knightly I ever read — which I must 
mention before beginning my humble story. After one 
of Mademoiselle Rachel's marvellous tragedy-queen per- 
formances at the Imperial Palace at Saint Petersburg, 
the Emperor Nicholas, who was present, was coming 
forward to greet her, when she rose to receive him. 
"Nay, mademoiselle, keep your seat," said the great 
Emperor, "we actual sovereigns must ever give way 
to the sovereigns of art ; for they live and reign long 
after we are forgotten ! " 

Now for my story. I came- home one day from 
school, at the usual hour, when I found some ladies 
and a youth of eighteen, one of my former scholars, 
visiting my wife and children. I began to tell them of 
a beautiful song which one of my teachers was in- 
structing her scholars to sing ; a song which seemed to 
me so touching, that the first time I heard it my heart 
throbbed with emotion, and my eyes filled with tears. 
Then I took the song out of my pocket — for I had 
asked the teacher to give me a copy of it — and began 
reading it aloud. When I had finished reading it, my 
little daughter Alice, who is ten years old, exclaimed, — 

" Why, papa, Frederika can sing that song !" 

Now Frederika is a young girl who had lately been 
engaged as ' ' help " in our family, and my little daugh- 
ter had become very fond of her. She is American 
born, of honest German parentage, and was educated at 
one of our public schools — a very pleasant, good-look- 
ing, intelligent girl, with blonde hair and blue eyes, 
a charming voice, and an agreeable manner. 



136 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

"Can she?" I exclaimed. "Well, we shall ask Frede- 
rika to sing it. Frederika !" I cried, in a louder voice, 
directed toward the kitchen, ' ' would you be so good as 
to sing that song for us ?" 

Frederika, who had from her place in the kitchen 
heard me narrate the whole story, hesitated for a mo- 
ment : she didn't like to sing before an audience, she 
said ; but, after a little pressing on the part of my 
daughter, she sang out in charming, yet quiet, sweet 
tones the following little song, while all the company 
listened in curious yet pleased surprise : 

THE UNFINISHED PRAYEB. 

" ' Now I lay me ' — say it, darling I" 
" Lay me," lisped the tiny lips 

Of my daughter, kneeling, bending 

O'er her folded finger-tips. 
" Down to sleep " — " To sleep," she mnrmnred, 

And the cnrly head dropped low. 
" I pray the Lord," I gently added — 
" Yon can say it all, I know." 
" Pray the Lord," — the words oanae faintly, 

More faintly still — " my soul to keep " — 

Then the tired head fairly nodded, 

And the child was fast asleep ! 

But the dewy eyes half opened, 

And I clasped her to my breast, 

When the dear voice softly whispered, 
" Mamma, God knows all the rest !" 

You may imagine what a pleasant surprise fnis was 
to me, and to us all. We felt as if we had been enter- 
taining an angel unawares ; and I couldn't help think- 
ing, and saying to my wife afterwards, ' ' That little girl 
is worth more to us than the work she can do ; she will 
be a pleasant companion to our children." And from 



ROMANCE IN REAL LIFE AN ILLUSTRATION. 1 37 

that day we treated her as a friend, not as a servant ; 
she dined at our table, and went with the children 
wherever they went ; and this contined for a period of 
three years. 

But the influence of that song' did not end here. It 
had a still more fascinating effect on the youth who 
was present on that occasion. This youth, who had 
just graduated from the Academy, and had entered the 
business of his father, a prosperous New York mer- 
chant, took due note of the gifted maiden, and soon 
found occasion to improve his acquaintance with her. 
As she lived with us as one of ourselves, this of course 
presented no great difficulty, and his parents being per- 
fectly aware of his intention, we put no obstacle in his 
way. He often came to our house after that day ; and 
although many of the young ladies of his own circle, 
well-to-do, well connected, and well educated, would 
have given their little finger to have secured his atten- 
tions, he neglected them all for that little maiden who 
sang the beautiful song ; who captivated him first 
through the ears, then through the eyes, and finally 
through the heart ; and I received this morning an in- 
vitation to the wedding of that youth and that maiden, 
to take place this day fortnight at the "little church 
'round the corner." Who will say there is no romance 
in real life? 



CHAPTER XVI. 



OTHER CONCEPTIONS OF GENIUS. 

I KNOW that many persons have a very different 
conception of genius from that which I have pre- 
sented in this essay. I have already spoken of Mr. 
Howell's notion ; but we shall leave him out of con- 
sideration at present. Many consider none but the very 
greatest men deserving of the name of men of genius ; 
none but those who have helped to shape the character 
of their age, or who have produced the greatest work 
of their age. Homer, Pericles, Demosthenes ; Virgil, 
Horace, Cicero ; Hannibal, Caesar, Alexander ; Michael 
Angelo, Raffael, Rubens ; Dante, Cervantes, Byron ; 
Lessing, Goethe, Schiller ; Shakespeare, Bacon, Milton ; 
Corneille, Racine, Moliere ; Voltaire, Pascal, Descartes ; 
Burns, Scott, Coleridge ; Washington, Jefferson, Hamil- 
ton ; Wellington, Napoleon, Grant ; Irving, Emerson, 
Whittier ; Webster, Clay, Lincoln, and such brilliant 
stars of the first magnitude, are the only names they 
consider worthy of being classed as those of men of 
genius. This, however, is, in my opinion, very arbi- 
trary and very unsatisfactory. There are degrees in 
genius as in other things ; greater lights and lesser 
lights ; some burning with a dazzling brilliancy, and 
some with a serene, mild, yet steady blaze. "All ex- 



OTHER CONCEPTIONS OF GENIUS. I39 

perience shows," says Archbishop Whately, "that dif- 
ferent persons have different degrees of ability ; " and 
all experience shows that different men of genius have 
different degrees of genius. "The power of one man 
over another," says Dr. John Brown, "is proportioned 
to bulk — for we hold to the notion of a bigness in souls 
as well as in bodies, and that one soul differs from 
another in quantity and momentum as well as in 
quality and force." 

Genius, therefore, is ability of a high order ; or, if you 
please, of an uncommon order ; but who shall say, by 
exact measurement, of what height or of what breadth ? 
Who shall say, precisely, which of the large number of 
able men who figure in history were men of genius and 
which were not ? For I hold that not only he who 
writes an epic poem, paints a beautiful picture, plans 
a successful campaign, or remodels a failing govern- 
ment ; not only he who conceives and carries through 
parliament wise measures for the relief of a nation, or 
creates a new literature for its edification and delecta- 
tion ; but he who invents a sewing-machine or a tele- 
phone, who makes some grand discovery adding to the 
knowledge or welfare of mankind, is possessed with 
the attribute of genius. It is the successful application 
of mind to any problem, that is the proof of genius. 

It is all nonsense to talk of the " divine afflatus" that 
moves the minds and distinguishes the works of men 
of genius : the "divine afflatus" would be of little value 
to any man if the possessor of it did not do something 
worthy or useful ; and it is very much of a question, 
which is the divine afflatus, the energy that causes the 
mind to work, or the action of the mind itself. "I 
know no great men," says Voltaire, "except those who 



140 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

have rendered great services to the human race. " Men 
are measured by what they do ; not by what they seem 
or possess. They are judged by results ; and judging by 
results, I say there are hundreds, nay thousands in the 
pages of history who have done such things as entitle 
them to the name and fame of men of genius. 

If I should set down from memory a score of those 
which I consider the most distinguished names in his- 
tory, I am sure that some readers would say that I had 
left out greater names than those I had mentioned ; for 
those whose studies have lain in a different direction 
from mine would consider others, with whose lives and 
works they are more familiar, of greater importance. 
After those I have mentioned above, I should set down, 
for instance, as among the greatest names : Plato, 
Socrates, Herodotus ; Seneca, Tacitus, Antoninus ; Co- 
pernicus, Kepler, Newton ; Wickliffe, Luther, Colum- 
bus ; Cromwell, Clive, Marlborough ; Dryden, Bunyan, 
Defoe ; Pope, Swift, Addison ; Chatham, Fox, Mirabeau ; 
Garrick, Siddons, Macready ; Reynolds, Turner, Rus- 
kin ; Nelson, Napier, Perry ; Chantrey, Flaxman, Story ; 
Wesley, Whitefield, Chalmers; Brougham, Peel, Glad- 
stone; Hume, Gibbon, Macaulay; Prescott, Motley, 
Bancroft; Burke, Buckle, Tennyson; George Eliot, 
Mathew Arnold, Fenimore Cooper; Fielding, Dickens, 
Thackeray; Kemble, Booth, Kean; Huxley, Tyndall, 
Darwin; Herbert Spencer, Louis Agassiz, Horace 
Mann; Rousseau, Diderot, Madame de Stael; Horace 
Greeley, Charles Sumner, Wendell Phillips; Holmes, 
Longfellow, Bryant; Moltke, Bismarck, Wolseley; 
Farragut, Stanton, Thomas; Livingstone, Stanley, 
Field. 

Would any competent person deny that these are all 
men of genius? And yet how different in degree and 



OTHER CONCEPTIONS OF GENIUS. I4I 

how various in quality was their genius ! Some would, 
perhaps, be in favor of dividing these names into those 
of the first, the second, and the third class ; but even 
then they would hardly deny them genius. Some, 
again, would say they were all men of the first class ; 
and yet it would be easy for me to turn to a biograph- 
ical dictionary, and put down as many more, or ten 
times as many more, names of men and women of 
almost equal brilliancy and power. In fact, if I did 
that, I would hardly know where to stop. There is 
Victor Hugo, for instance, whom I forgot. Swinburne 
would place him above them all ; and there is Toussaint 
L'Ouverture, whom I never thought of, but whom Wen- 
dell Phillips places above the greatest military and 
political heroes of modern times. * 

Some will say. Part of these are men of talent, and 
part men of genius. Possibly ; but what is talent, and 
what is genius? Men of talent are those clever men 
who amuse, entertain, and charm society by their witty, 

*M. Comte, the author of the Positive Philosophy, has com- 
piled what he calls " The New Calendar of Great men," in which 
he has set down between five and six hundred names of worthies 
of all ages and nations, classified under thirteen heads. This 
calendar was drawn up with the view of supplanting the saints 
of the Catholic calendar with men who have really advanced the 
cause of civilization and human development. "His list of 
heroes and benefactors of mankind," says Mr. John Stuart Mill, 
"includes not only every important name in the scientific move- 
ment, from Thales of Miletus to Fourier the mathematician and 
Blauville the biologist, and, in the aesthetic, from Homer to 
Manzoni, but the most illustrious names in the annals of the 
various religions and philosophies, and the really great politicians 
in all states of society." And yet he has left out Martin Luther, 
John Calvin, John Wesley, and the Earl of Chatham I 



142 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

tactful, and lively conversation ; who succeed in busi- 
ness, acquire wealth and influence in the world, a posi- 
tion in society, and power in political or fashionable 
circles. Men of genius may do all or none of these 
things ; but one thing they must do : they must add 
something new to the world's store of good things ; 
they must give the world something it never had be- 
fore ; they must increase the world's happiness in some 
way. The place of the man of talent can always be 
supplied ; that of the man of genius never. Hence the 
absurdity of the remark of Canova's neighbor, who, 
when the sculptor died, asked his brother if he was 
"going to carry on the business!" A man of talent 
may write a bright poem, a fascinating novel, or a 
clever historical work ; but only a man of genius can 
produce a Childe Harold, an Ivanhoe, or histories like 
that of Buckle or Macaulay. "In the work of a man of 
genius," says an anonymous writer, "there is always 
something preeminently his own, unborrowed from any 
one else; he gives the world something that was not 
there before; he creates something new and original." 

Now, judged by this standard, which of the above- 
named men was not a man of genius ? which of them 
has not given the world something new, something it 
had not known before.? They have all either done 
something or produced something the world knew not 
before ; and if not their thoughts, their deeds still live, 
and resound along the ages, influencing for good or ill 
the countless thousands into whose ears their words or 
deeds are constantly poured. 

Schopenhauer, who considered only the very greatest 
names those of men of genius, thus illustrates by a 
pretty fable his idea of a man of genius. There are a 



OTHER CONCEPTIONS OF GI5N1US. 143 

dozen men firing at a target three hundred yards off. 
Some send several shots within the rings of the target ; 
some send half a dozen shots into the bull's eye, and 
one hits the bull's eye every time ; while one, who pays 
no attention to the others, and is laughed at whenever 
he fires, never hits the target at all. This last man, 
who is so much ridiculed by the others, goes content- 
edly away, without making a single remark ; and it is 
found, long afterwards, that he had been firing at a 
target a thousand yards farther off than the one they 
had been firing at, and that he had put his ball into the 
bull's eye of this distant target every time ! This is 
Schopenhauer's man of genius; the others were ordi- 
nary, geniusless mortals ! This conception is, I must 
confess, striking; but it illustrates merely the order of 
ability of many a man of genius as compared with that 
of those around him. William of Orange, Lord Chat- 
ham, Von Stein, Count Cavour, and Abraham Lincoln 
were preeminently men of this stamp : they saw what 
their contemporaries did not or could not see ; they saw 
what was the great thing to be done, and did it ; and 
their aims were so broad, deep, and far-reaching that 
they could not be appreciated in their own day, and 
needed time to bring out all the greatness of their 
genius. William was the first king of England to see 
that a constitutional government, a government in 
which the representatives of the people should hold the 
great powers of the State and should determine what 
policy to pursue, was a necessity ; that it was the only 
government that would last in England, and that it was 
the wisest and safest government for all concerned. 
He was the first to form a ministry from the leading 
men in parliament of either party, and to pursue a 



144 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

policy such as parliament would endorse. Chatham's 
generous support of Frederick of Prussia, his strong 
measures against France and Spain, his liberal govern- 
ment of the Colonies, his large projects for the extension 
of British commerce, his early plans for the reform of 
the House of Commons, and for placing India under the 
government of the Crown, were all the acts of a wise 
and far-seeing statesman, ratified and approved by sub- 
sequent generations. Von Stein saw that nothing could 
be done in Prussia until its feerf-peasants were freed, 
educated, and drilled into good soldiers ; until they 
were made to feel and understand that they had a home 
and a country to fight for ; and it was this statesman's 
persistent efforts in this direction, so little appreciated 
in his own day, that laid the foundation of Germany's 
present greatness. Cavour's advocacy of a constitu- 
tional government ; his alliance with England ; his pro- 
motion of free trade and of English methods in com- 
merce and agriculture, paved the way for Garibaldi, 
and finally led to a free and united Italy. And to Lin- 
coln's calm and statesmanlike policy, the success of the 
Federal cause in the late Civil War is largely owing ; 
for in the midst of that war, when everybody was talk- 
ing of compromise, arrangement, reconciliation, separa- 
tion, and what not, Lincoln firmly declared that a house 
divided against itself could not stand ; that either slavery 
or the government must be destroyed ; and that there 
could be no possible compromise upon this which would 
not put us under again, and leave us all our work to do 
over again. And he was right. We now see how 
wisely he acted; but many of us could not see it then. 
These, therefore, were all far-seeing statesmen, true 
marksmen, who hit the distant target every time. 



OTHER CONCEPTIONS OF GENIUS. 145 

But it would be a serious error to consider none but 
such wonderful marksmen as possessing genius ; for 
this would exclude many men of the finest mental 
calibre of nearly every class. The man who hit the 
bull's eye every time at three hundred yards had his 
portion of genius — how many can do even that.^ — as 
well as the long-range marksman ; and the Stantons 
and Chases and Sewards who surrounded Lincoln had 
theirs as well as their master. Seward thought the 
Rebellion could be suppressed in ninety days, which 
showed that he belonged to the short-range marksmen ; 
but who that is acquainted with the life and labors of that 
eminent statesman will deny him genius ? Was it not 
he that proclaimed the "irrepressible conflict" between 
slave and free labor.? Was it not he that bought Alaska 
for |7, GOO, GOO, which all the world now acknowledges 
to have been a master-stroke of policy.? If we should 
so measure men, not only many able orators, statesmen, 
and writers would be excluded from the assembly of 
genius, but men of the highest order of ability of every 
class ; all our great actors, singers, and musicians, for 
instance. What ! were Garrick, Kean, Siddons, Booth, 
Davenport, Cushman, Mathews, Jefferson, and Sothem 
devoid of genius? And those gifted artists who have 
held such countless multitudes spell-bound for genera- 
tions by their rare talents, Paganini, Thalberg, Ole Bull, 
Damrosch, Sontag, Jenny Lind, Patti, and the rest — 

Those souls 
Whose sudden visitation daze the worM, 
Vanish like lightning, and leave behind 
A name that in the distance far away 
Wakens the youth of slumbering ages— 

shall these be counted out from the noble assembly of 



146 CULTURE BY S£LF-ittELP. 

genius? Nay, you might as well exclude Apollo from 
the council of the gods. I hold that every uncommonly 
gifted person, no matter of what class or of what calling, 
is a man or woman of genius, and cannot be placed in 
any other category. 

Of Schopenhauer's far-seeing men of genius, there are 
two examples in Middle Age history which, I think, 
would have suited his fancy exactly. I shall conclude 
with an illustrative episode in the lives of these men, 
neither of whom produced anything in the way of 
art, literature, or science ; yet both of whom possessed 
Schopenhauer's mark of genius. These two men are 
Frederick the Second of Germany and Malak el Kameel, 
the Saracen Sultan of anti-crusader fame. Frederick 
was a statesman who knew how to govern ; he was 
fond of all noble studies, was one of the first to bring 
Saracen learning to Europe, and hated nothing more 
than war and bloodshed. The Pope having forced him 
to undertake a crusade .against the Saracens, he collected 
an army, and set out for the East. He had not gone far 
before his army was attacked by the pestilence, and he 
returned in haste to Italy ; but the threats and anathemas 
of the Pope compelled him to set out again. On arriv- 
ing at Jerusalem, he expressed a desire to ha/e a talk 
with the Saracen commander before coming to blows. 
Like the noble Brutus, he believed in "words before 
blows." The two men came together, and no sooner 
had they exchanged a few sentences with each other, 
than each saw that the other was a man of superior in- 
telligence and of noble character. They had a long, 
free, and open-hearted talk, in which they exchanged 
views on government, religion, society, the rights of 
man, and so on — a talk such as two enlightened princes 



OTHER CONCEPTIONS OF GENIUS. 147 

of the present day might have had on similar subjects. 
The result of this conference was a treaty, by which 
the Moslem agreed to a cessation of hostilities for ten 
years, the delivery of Jerusalem and the surrounding 
territory to Frederick (with the exception of a single 
mosque on the site of the ancient temple), and the free 
and safe passage of pilgrims to and from the Holy 
Land. 

Thus the whole object of the expedition was secured 
without shedding a drop of blood; and Frederick, 
thinking he had done a good thing, and well pleased 
with his work, turned his face homeward and in due 
ti-me reached Europe with his army in safety. No 
sooner, however, had the Pope heard of his proceed- 
ings, than he set up a hideous cry of treason to the 
faith, betrayal of the Church, compounding with the in- 
fidel, and what not, declaring that Frederick should 
have had no dealings with the infidel, but have smitten 
him hip and thigh, and spoiled his country as Gideon of 
old spoiled the Philistines ; and he reaffirmed the sen- 
tence of excommunication, condemned him to a thou- 
sand pains and penalties, and persecuted him almost to 
death. 

Posterity, however, has ratified the conduct of Fred- 
erick and the Moslem as wise and statesmanlike, and 
condemned that of the Pope and his adherents as 
narrow, bigoted, and cruel. * And posterity, no less than 

* To show the remarkable enlightenment and liberality of this 
Middle Age emperor, Frederick II., who died in 1250, let me quote 
two sentences from the Encyclopedia Britannica : " The appeal 
to Christendom with which Frederick met the Church's fulmina- 
tion is remarkable in this, that not contenting himself with de- 
fending his own conduct, he denounced the temporal pretensions 
of the Pope as menacing all Christendom with an * nnbeard-of 



148 



CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 



Schopenhauer, must regard them both as men of real 
genius, far-seeing and skilful marksmen, who hit the 
bull's eye of the distant target every time. 

tyranny,' and asserted that, instead of rolling in wealth and aspir- 
ing to worldly influence, the Church's representatives ought to 
cultivate the simplicity and self-denial of the early Christians. 
... In the interval of peace which followed, Frederick occu- 
pied himself in forming for his Sicilian kingdom a code of laws, 
the main features of which were : the superseding of irresponsi- 
ble feudal and ecclesiastical jurisdictions by a uniform civil legis- 
lation, administered under direct imperial control ; the toleration 
extended to Jews and Mahometans, and the severe enactments 
against schismatics ; the provisions for the emancipation of the 
peasants ; the regulations for the encouragement of commerce, 
which contain perhaps the first enunciation of the modern doc- 
trine of free trade ; and the establishment of annual parliaments, 
consisting of barons, prelates and representatives from the towns 
and cities." No wonder he was persecuted by the Church, stig- 
matized as an infidel, and accused of all the crimes in the calen- 
dar ! Frederick was one of the pioneers of the Reformation and 
modern liberty of thought. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



MEN OF TRUE GREATNESS. 

u 'T^HE true test of a great man," says Lord 
1. Brougham, "is his having been in advance of 
his age." This is only another way of express- 
ing Schopenhauer's idea of a great man, or rather of a 
man of genius — for the terms are not always synony- 
mous — namely, one who aims far, who works for a 
future as well as for the present age. Most men of 
genius have been in advance of their age ; most of 
them have attempted things which the men of their age 
thought foolish or impossible of attainment : many of 
them have laid down principles which found no favor 
in the eyes of the men of their age, but which were 
eagerly adopted and put into practice by the men of 
subsequent ages. 

Perhaps no better example of a great man of this 
stamp can be found than Sir Thomas More, Henry the 
Eighth's Chancellor, and author of the famous "Utopia." 
In this work, which is a description of an imaginary 
commonwealth, and which was conceived and written 
in the early part of the sixteenth century, an age in 
which all Christendom was still groaning under the 
most barbarous laws and the most cruel despotism, its 
author anticipates the most important social and politi- 



tJO CtfLTURE BV SELi?-HEL1P. 

cal changes of modern times, and expresses opinions 
which are still far in advance of the current opinion of 
the present day. He saw that the society around him 
was "nothing but a conspiracy of the rich against the 
poor;" that the rich "take to their own use and profit, 
at the lowest possible price, the work and labor of the 
poor;" and that "as soon as the rich decide" on certain 
devices "to rob the poor," they make laws in the name 
of the people to do it. He saw that the existence to 
which the laboring classes were doomed was " a life so 
wretched that even a beast's life seems enviable" 
in comparison. "In this imaginary commonwealth," 
says Mr. Green, in his excellent History of the English 
People, "the aim of legislation is to secure the welfare, 
social, industrial, intellectual, religious, of the commu- 
nity at large, and of the labor class in particular, as the 
true basis of a well-ordered commonwealth. The end 
of its labor laws was simply the welfare of the laborer. 
Goods were possessed indeed in common, but labor 
was compulsory with all. The period of toil was 
shortened to the nine hours demanded by modern arti- 
sans, with a view to the intellectual improvement of 
the worker. ... A public system of education 
enabled the Utopians to avail themselves of their lei- 
sure; for while in England half of the population 
' could read no English, ' every child was well taught in 
Utopia." The Utopians were well aware of the con- 
nection between public morality and individual health, 
and their houses were built so as to afford all the bene- 
fits to be derived from light, air, and cleanliness. Their 
religion, too, rested on nature and reason ; they held 
that God's design was the happiness of man, and that 
the ascetic rejection of human delights, save for the 



MEN OF TRUE GREATNESS. I5I 

common good, was thanklessness to the Giver. And, 
above all, they proclaimed the great principle of reli- 
gious toleration, and held it lawful for every man to be 
of what religion he pleased. 

The author of this wonderful book was the first, too, 
to point out the fact that punishment is less effective in 
suppressing crime than measures of prevention ; that 
education is one of the great factors in the prevention 
of crime ; and that it is an outrage to punish simple 
theft the same as murder. The end of all punishment 
he declares to be reformation, "nothing else but the 
destruction of vice and the saving of men ; " and he ad- 
vises "so to use and order criminals that they cannot 
choose but be good ; and what harm soever they did 
before, the residue of their lives should be so ordered 
as to make amends for the same." Lastly, he points 
out, that punishment, to be remedial, must be wrought 
out by labor and hope, so that the criminal will not be 
left in despair of ever again recovering his former posi- 
tion in society. 

Here, indeed, was a man of genius ; here was a 
great man, capable of the largest, the most liberal, the 
most enlightened views of society. No man of his day 
shot so far and so unerringly into the future as he ; no 
11 an of his day looked at society with so discrimi- 

■ 'ing, so penetrating, and so prophetic an eye. What 
ity that such a man should fall a victim to the blind 
Hatred and narrow bigotry of a cruel and remorseless 
prince ; what a pity that such a man was not allowed 
to carry out his humane and enlightened views among 
his own countrymen ! But that age was not worthy of 
him ; a prophet is not honored in his own country ; 
and, being incapable of appreciating him or his measures, 



152 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

his countrymen left him to his fate, the gallows. They 
had to go on learning by suffering and sorrow for many 
generations before they could come up to him. 

"When I asked you for anecdotes upon the age of this 
king, " says Voltaire, writing to a friend for material for 
his History of Louis XIV., "I referred less to the king 
himself than to the arts which flourished in his reign. 
I should prefer details relating to Racine and Boileau, 
to Quinault, Sully, Moliere, Lebrun, Bossuet, Poussin, 
Descartes, and others, than to the battle of Steinkirk. 
Nothing but a name remains of those who commanded 
battalions and fleets ; nothing results to the human 
race from a hundred battles gained ; but the great men 
of whom I have spoken prepared pure and durable de- 
lights for generations unborn. A canal that connects 
two seas, a picture by Poussin, a beautiful tragedy, a 
discovered truth, are things a thousand times more 
precious than all the annals of the court, than all the 
narratives of war. You know that with me great meit 
rank first; heroes last. I call great men those who 
have excelled in the useful or the agreeable. Th«j 
ravagers of provinces are mere heroes. " 

This is the language of a wise man, the clear percep- 
tion of a man of sense and knowledge. No man un^ 
derstood true greatness better than Voltaire. "Not 
long ago," he says in another place, "a distinguished 
company were discussing the trite and frivolous ques- 
tion, Which was the greatest man, Caesar, Alexander, 
Tamerlane, or Cromwell ? Somebody answered that 
Sir Isaac Newton was undoubtedly greater than any 
of them. This person was right ; for if true greatness 
consists in having received from heaven a powerful 
understanding and in using it to enlighten one's self 



MEN OF TRUE GREATNESS. 153 

and all others, then such a man as Newton, who is 
hardly to be met with once in a thousand years, is in 
truth the great man. . , , It is to him who frees 
our minds by the light of truth, not to those who enslave 
us by violence ; it is to him who understands the uni- 
verse, not to those who disfigure it, that we owe our 
reverence." 

All those who possess the power of making some 
new discovery, of perceiving why and how some bene- 
ficial work is to be done, and who have the energy to 
go to work in the doing of it, are men of genius. This 
latter quality is the very essence of what we call genius ; 
for that sudden inspiration, that blaze of thought by 
which a discovery is made, a truth is revealed, a grand 
enterprise is suggested, is fruitless without the energy 
to proclaim or prosecute it. A trifling circumstance 
may give rise to the inspiration ; but only cool, steady, 
energetic work will bring it to perfection. A single 
remark, dropped by an unknown person in the street, 
led to the successful story of "The Breadwinners;" a 
hymn chanted by the bare-footed friars in the temple of 
Jupiter at Rome, led to the famous "Decline and Fall 
of the Roman Empire ; " a short poem, " Darkness," by 
Lord Byron, suggested Pollock's "Course of Time ; " but 
what use would these things be, if their authors were 
not workers ? Sometimes a trifling incident, unobserved 
and neglected by all others, causes the eye of genius 
to see, as by a flash, the plan and proportions of 
some magnificent structure. I have read of a civil en- 
gineer whose first conception of the splendid suspen- 
sion bridge which he erected came from observing the 
manner in which a spider threw her web across an 
arbor in his garden ; and of a mechanical inventor 



154 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

whose first conception of a valuable wool-combing 
machine was suggested by observing the manner in 
which his daughter carried her hand backward and for- 
ward while combing her hair. The idea comes like a 
flash ; but its realization is the result of slow and meas- 
ured labor. Peter the Great, while one day looking 
about among some old ship-stores and other neglected 
effects, chanced to cast his eye upon the hulk of a 
small English sloop, with its sailing tackle, lying 
among the rest of the lumber, and fast going to decay. 
This vessel, which was the first of the kind he had ever 
seen, immediately became in his mind the germ of a 
great national marine; and he never rested until he 
had built a navy which could compete with almost any 
other in Europe. 

Genius is simply mental power applied to practical 
objects ; and this power is acquired, or at least brought 
to bear, by vigorous training and constant practice. 
Neither Shakespeare nor Milton, Dante nor Goethe, 
would ever have done anything uncommon had they 
not been diligent students and ceaseless workers. It is 
morally certain that Shakespeare was an omnivorous 
reader and an all-embracing student; and we know 
that Goethe spent his life in self-culture. It is certain 
that Shakespeare wrote many things before he com- 
posed ' ' Hamlet ; " and we know that Milton studied all 
literature, acquired many languages, and wrote a cart- 
load of books, before he composed "Paradise Lost." 

Most of those who make great fortunes in business 
are men of genius. They have that rare power of or- 
ganization, combination, and foresight which charac- 
terizes the successful general, and which the multitude 
lack. " That this talent for organization and manage- 



MEN OF TRUE GREATNESS. 1 55 

ment," says Andrew Carnegie, himself a practical ex- 
ample of the truth, "is rare among men, is proved by 
the fact that it invariably secures for its possessor enor- 
mous rewards, no matter where or under what laws 
and conditions it is exhibited." 

A man of genius is not simply a man of uncommon 
gifts who employs those gifts to dazzle the world and 
advance his own interests ; but a man of uncommon 
gifts who feels that he has a calling, a mission to fulfil ; 
who is animated by the desire to do some great good 
thing for the benefit of his fellow-men ; who sees some- 
thing unfitting in the order of things around him, and 
burns with the desire to right them ; who is possessed 
with the idea that there is some special work for him to 
do, and who never spares himself in the doing of it. 
Such a man, whose genius is sanctified by human 
sympathy, never thinks of money-getting ; rather, like 
Agassiz, he has "no time to make money." If he ever 
thinks of reward, it is perhaps the pleasure of seeing 
those in light who were once in darkness, or those in 
comfort who were once in misery. Men of genius do 
not, as a general thing, make money. " Genius," says 
Whipple, "may almost be defined as the faculty of 
acquiring poverty. " It is the men of talent who make 
money out of the work of the men of genius. Some- 
body has truly said, that the greatest works have 
brought the least benefit to their authors. They were 
beyond the reach of appreciation before appreciation 
came. The benefactors of mankind have never stooped 
to the quest of lucre. Who can conceive of Socrates or 
Saint Paul, Martin Luther or John Wesley, John Hamp- 
den or George Washington, scheming to make money ? 

"The Vicar of Wakefield," says G. W. Curtis, "was 



156 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

sold, through Dr. Johnson's mediation, for sixty pounds ; 
and ten years after, the author died. With what love 
do we hang over its pages ! What springs of feeling it 
has opened ! Goldsmith's books are influences and 
friends forever ; yet the five thousandth copy was never 
announced, and Oliver Goldsmith, M. B. , often wanted 
a dinner 1 Horace Walpole, the coxcomb of literature, 
smiled at him contemptuously from his gilded carriage. 
Goldsmith struggled cheerfully with his adverse fate, 
and died. But then sad mourners, whom he had aided 
in their affliction, gathered around his bed ; and a lady 
of distinction, whom he had only dared to admire at a 
distance, came and cut a lock of his hair for remem- 
brance. When I see Goldsmith, thus carrying his heart 
in his hand like a palm-branch, I look on him as a suc- 
cessful man, whom adversity could not bring down from 
the level of his lofty nature. " 

I have in my mind's eye at this moment the editor of 
a little weekly paper, published in New York city, a 
paper which advocates unpopular doctrines, all aimed 
at the more equal or less unequal distribution of wealth 
and the amelioration of the sad condition of certain of 
the working classes, — this man, I say, though he makes 
no money by his enterprise, though he has lost the earn- 
ings of a life-time in it, and is laughed at as a crank by 
most of his contemporaries, is eminently a man of 
genius. After twenty-five years of brilliant leader-writ- 
ing for the New York press, he suddenly quits it, and 
devotes all his energies to this new and noble enterprise 
of lifting the down-trodden laborer and artisan to a 
higher level in life. Though he has had but indifferent 
success ; though neither the ill-rewarded workman nor 
the wealthy idler appreciates his labors ; though he may 



MEN OF TRUK GREATNESS. 1 57 

die poor and friendless, and pitied by the prosperous 
ones of this world ; yet Posterity will undoubtedly give 
him his due, and award him an honorable place among 
those rare marksmen of genius who have aimed at and 
hit the distant target of fate.* 

Unto eaoh man his handiwork, nnto eaoh his orown, 

The just Fate gives; 
Whoso takes the world's life on him, and his own lays down, 

He, dying so, lives. 

"When real history shall be written by the truthful 
and the wise," says Mr. IngersoU, "the kneelers at the 
shrines of chance and fraud, the brazen idols once wor- 
shipped as gods, shall be the very food of scorn ; while 
those who have borne the burden of defeat, who have 
earned and kept their self-respect, who have never bowed 
to men or money for place or power, will wear upon 
their brows the laurel mingled with the oak. " 

For you may be sure, my young readers, that as men 
have gradually worked themselves up from the merest 
brute existence, from complete subjection, body and 
soul, to princes and priests, to that state of comparative 
freedom and independence which they now enjoy ; so 
surely will they go on, and never rest until they have at- 
tained all that the Creator intended they should possess. 

Knowledge is spreading and laws are changing so 
fast that the word "Utopian," which has heretofore 
stood for everything visionary and impractical, is be- 
coming obsolete and meaningless ; and a fairer distribu- 

* The gentleman here referred to is Mr. John Swinton, for- 
merly managing editor of the New York Times, who spent 
the savings of a life-time, thirty thousand dollars, in an at- 
tempt to establish a Socialistic journal. I gave some account 
of his life and conversation in a pamphlet entitled " Career 
and Conversation of John Swinton," published by Kerr & Co., 
Chicago. 



158 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

tion of the profits of labor, and a better condition of the 
working people than that even of Utopia, are only a 
question of time. 

Let me conclude with some touching lines of the late 
George Perry, editor of the Home Journal, on the labor- 
ing poor of a great city : 

What's this wretched throng that passes I 

Man in ruins can it be f 
God in Heaven ! what impions mortals 

Here have outraged Man and Thee I 

O ye children of the Father ! 

Whence have come your wreck and spoil ? 
Plundered, famished, blinded, buried 

In the sepulchre of toil ! 

Oh down-trodden, chilled, embruted I 

Where is youth's auroral flight ? 
Wheie affection's dewy fragrance f 

Where the grace of manhood's might ? 

Marble homes your toil has builded — 
Lustrous robes your toil has spun ! 

Where, poor wretches, is the fruitage 
That from earth your toil has won ? 

Fires of Heaven 1 can naught more gentle 

Than your burning, blasting tide. 
Sweep from earth this mad oppression — 

Crush this damning fratricide 1 

No, O Mercy, thou — thou alone, 

From thy high celestial home — 
Thou alone wilt bid these fallen 

IJnto life's rich banquet come I 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



HOW GENIUS IS AWAKENED. 

HOW often we find, in the history of men of genius, 
that they neglected the studies or the business to 
which they were put, and took to something more 
congenial to their taste ! How often we find them rebel- 
ling against the injunctions and the arrangements of pa- 
rents and guardians, and making arrangements of their 
own ! Sometimes the youthful genius deserts his home 
and his kinsfolk, and takes to travelling or sight-seeing, 
acting, soldiering or hunting ; sometimes he puts aside 
his books on law or medicine, theology or pedagogy, and 
takes to poetry or fiction, history or mathematics. Sir 
Isaac Newton's mother tried to make a farmer of him ; 
but "the perusal of a book, the execution of a model, or 
the superintendence of a water-wheel of his own con- 
struction, whirling the glittering spray from some neigh- 
boring stream, absorbed all his thoughts, whilst the 
sheep were going astray and the cattle were devouring 
or treading down the corn ; " which, says his biographer, 
soon convinced his mother that her son was not made 
for a farmer. Pascal's father, who was himself a mathe- 
matician, forbade his son to meddle with mathematics, 
and requested him to stick to languages and general 
literature. But the boy's bent was too strong for paren- 
tal authority. " Having extracted from his father some 



l6o CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

hints as lo the subject-matter of geometry," says one of 
his biographers, "he went to work by himself, drawing 
circles and lines, — or, as he called them in his ignorance 
of the received nomenclature, rounds and bars, — and 
investigating and proving the properties of his various 
figures ; till, without the help of a single book or of oral 
instruction of any kind, he had advanced as far as the 
thirty-second proposition of the First Book of Euclid. 
He had perceived that the three angles of a triangle are 
together equal to two right angles, and was searching 
for a satisfactory proof when his father surprised him at 
his forbidden speculations." He was at this time but 
twelve years old ; and his father, recognizing the strong 
bent of the boy's mind, now removed all restrictions, 
and allowed him to pursue a study for which he pos- 
sessed such marked ability. 

Rue it as he may, repent it as he often does, the man 
of genius is driven by an irresistible impulse to the 
occupation for which he was created. No matter by 
what difficulties surrounded, no matter how unpromising 
the prospect, this occupation is the only one which he 
will pursue with interest and pleasure. When his efforts 
fail to procure means of subsistence, and he finds him- 
self poor and neglected, he may, like Burns, often look 
back with a sigh and think how much better off he 
would be, had he pursued some other occupation ; but 
he will stick to his favorite pursuit nevertheless : 

All in this mottie, misty clime, 

I backward miused on wasted time : 

How I had spent my youthful prims 
And done nae thing 

But stringing blethers up in rhyme 
For fools to sing. 



HOW GENIUS IS AWAKENED. l6l 

Had I to good advice but harket, 

I might, by this, hae led a market, 
Or strutted in a bank, and clarket 

My cash account ; 
While here, half -mad, half-fed, half-earket, 
Is a' th' amottnt. 

I shall here present a few examples, showing how 
this impulse displays itself in early life, how it strength- 
ens with years, and how, finally, overcoming all obsta- 
cles, it becomes the ruling passion of existence, the 
source of all the troubles and all the triumphs of its 
possessor. 

Handel's father, who was a physician, designed his 
son for the profession of the law ; but the boy showed 
a remarkable fondness for music, which was by no 
means encouraged by his father. Young Handel, how- 
ever, contrived to get an old spinet, and, carrying it 
away up into a hayloft, practiced on it with great dili- 
gence, without his father's knowledge, until he had 
learned to play it well. Some time after this, on the 
occasion of his father's visit to a brother, who was in 
the employ of the reigning Duke of Weisenfelds, the boy 
was allowed to accompany him; and, while unob- 
served by his father, he stole away to the organ in the 
chapel, where, boy-like, he set up a concert on his own 
account. The duke, happening to hear the performance, 
and not recognizing the style of the performer, sent to 
inquire who it was. The young musician, blushing and 
trembling, was brought before him ; but the duke, far 
from reproaching, praised him heartily for his perfor- 
mance; and, representing to his father that it was a 
crime to stifle his native genius, succeeded in inducing 
him to let the boy pursue his proper vocation. 



l62 CULTURBS BY SELF-HELP. 

Napoleon's favorite occupation, as a boy, was building 
miniature fortifications, and attacking and capturing 
them ; and his first grand exploit as a man, that which 
drew the attention of France to him, was his skilful 
capture of the fortress of Toulon. In one of his boyish 
attempts at fortification storming, he got into a quarrel 
with another boy, who ridiculed and annoyed him in his 
ambitious play; and, in his rage, the young general fired 
one of his stone soldiers at him, striking him over the 
right eye and inflicting a severe wound. Twenty years 
afterwards, when Napoleon was at the height of power, 
this same person presented himself at the Tuilleries, re- 
questing an interview with the Emperor, The latter did 
not remember the name of the visitor. "Tell his Ma- 
jesty," said his old enemy, "that I have a big scar over 
my right eye, the mark of a wound received from him. " 
"Oh," said Napoleon, recollecting him at once, "he is 
the fellow whom I struck with my first lieutenant of 
artillery ! Tell him to come in. " I read this story, or 
something like it, some thirty j^^ears ago, in Dumas' Life 
of Napoleon, which I have never seen since : all else 
in that book is faded and gone, which proves how last- 
ing is the impression made by a story illustrative of 
character. 

Moliere was brought up to his father's calling, that of 
a mender of old clothes. When his grandfather brought 
him to see a comedy at the hotel de Bourgogne, he sud- 
denly conceived an aversion to his father's business, 
and desired to be sent to college. With the help of his 
grandfather, and much against the will of his father, his ' 
request was granted. He spent five years at college, 
and then became an actor and author. Then he en- 
nobled France and enriched the world by writing the 



HOW GENIUS IS AWAKENED. 1 63 

finest comedies in modern literature, and giving the 
noblest representations of them on the stage. 

Schiller was early put to the study of surgery in a mil- 
itary school at Stuttgart, a sort of grand-ducal prison, 
of which the reigning duke was keeper and the students 
his prisoners. Here, although everything but the pre- 
scribed medical studies and military drill was forbidden, 
he secretly composed his first play, "The Robbers," 
and it was only by careful concealment and by a com- 
plete disguise that he was able to witness its perform- 
ance. So galling did the uncongenial studies and tyran- 
nical restrictions of this school become to him, that he 
finally fled from it, and ventured out into the world, 
without means and without prospect of support of any 
kind. Fortunately, he found friends ; for a kind-hearted 
lady opened her house to him : and here, sitting down 
resolutely to his congenial work, he produced, in eight 
or nine months, two splendid dramas. It was thus he 
convinced his father and his friends that he was made 
to elevate the souls rather than cure the bodies of men. 

The following story, which I find in Harper's Weekly, 
shows how the genius of one of our greatest living 
sculptors was first discovered : 

"The sister of J. Q. A. Ward has a curious statuette 
in alabaster, about six inches high, under a glass case in 
the drawing-room of her handsome country seat near 
Newburg-on-the-Hudson. It is the figure of an Irish- 
man who used to do chores for her family thirty-five 
years ago in Brooklyn, and is wonderfully lifelike and 
faithful, even to the patches in his trousers, the rent in 
his coat, and the creases in his narrow-brimmed stove- 
pipe hat. The work was executed with a penknife by 
her brother, then in his teens, while on a visit to het 



164 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

house. It SO pleased her that she took it to the sculptor, 
H. K. Brown. 'Madam,' said he, admiring it, 'this boy 
has something in him.' For six years after this, young 
Ward was a pupil in Mr. Brown's studio, laying the 
foundation of the most prosperous career yet achieved 
by an American sculptor." 

"When Opie was only ten years of age," says Mr. 
Ballou, in his interesting book, Genius in Sunshine and 
Shadow, "he saw a person who was somewhat accom- 
plished with the pencil draw a butterfly. The boy 
watched the process with marked interest, and, as soon 
as the draughtsman had departed, produced upon a 
shingle a drawing equally good, which he showed to 
his mother. She, good woman, encouraged him, as 
the mother of Benjamin West had done upon a similar 
occasion ; but his father, being a harsh, rude, low-bred 
man, was constantly punishing him for laziness, and for 
chalking faces, figures, and animals on every stray bit of 
board or flat surface at hand. The boy had genius, how- 
ever ; what he required was opportunity. Good fortune 
sent Dr. Walcott, better known as Peter Pindar, that 
way, and he, seeing the boy's dawning genius, helped 
him with suitable material and some useful suggestions. 
It was not long before the lad got away from home, 
quietly aided by his good friend Dr. Walcott, and soon 
earned money enough to clothe himself decently and 
make a start in life. He developed into a distinguished 
artist, whose historical paintings, 'The Death of Rizzio' 
and 'Jephtha's Vow,' became stepping-stones to his 
election as President of the Royal Academy. " 

Some men give no sign of genius until they have 
reached maturity; others show it almost in infancy. 
At the age of four years Mozart played the clavichord, 



HOW GENIUS IS AWAKENED. 165 

and composed a number of minuets and other pieces, 
which are still extant. From a high stool in the 
nursery, young Chalmers used to preach, with solemn 
mien and earnest gestures, long sermons to his infant 
audience ; and Sir Robert Peel, when quite a little boy, 
used to repeat the morning's sermon, as well as he 
could remember it, from a high chair on which he was, 
after dinner, placed by his father. Goethe wrote long 
tragedies in his twelfth year, and Grotius published a 
learned philosophical work, displaying uncommon abil- 
ity, in his fifteenth year. Pope, whose precocity is 
well known, thus informs us how he came to write 
poetry : 

Why did I write f What sin to me nnknown 
Dipt me in ink, my parents' or my own? 
While still a child, as yet nnknown to fame, 
I lisped in numbers, for the nnmbers came. 
I left no calling for this idle trade, 
No duty broke, no father disobeyed. 

And he produced in his nineteenth year one of his very 
best poems, the "Essay on Criticism." Cowley pub- 
lished a volume of poems, called "Poetic Blossoms," 
in his sixteenth year, and one of the pieces contained 
therein was written in his ninth year. The unfortunate 
Chatterton, 

The marvellous boy, 
The sleepless soul that perished in his pride, 

wrote poems at eleven years of age that surpassed the 
early productions of both Pope and Cowley. How 
often have I, in imagination, seen Horace Walpole 
taking this gifted youth by the hand, and, while lead- 
ing him into the path of fame, honor, and usefulness, 
covering himself with eternal honor! But no; the 



1 66 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

gay, witty and worthless man of the world had no 
sympathy with genius in poverty. 

Sir Thomas Lawrence and Benjamin West began to 
draw likenesses almost as soon as they could hold a 
pencil; Liszt played before the public at twelve years 
of age ; and Canova, while yet a child, made models 
in clay and cut little marble fragments into figures of 
animals. Victor Hugo wrote "Bug-Jargal" at sixteen 
and *' Hans d'Islande" at eighteen; and he completed 
"Notre Dame de Paris," one of his very best produc- 
tions, before he was twenty-five. Verdi received his first 
musical impressions at a very early age from a poor 
wandering musician, whose "wretched viohn charmed 
the little lad until he nearly fell into an ecstacy ; " and 
it is supposed that this poor musician was the first to 
advise his father to let him study music. 

Sheridan wrote one of his best comedies, "The 
Rivals," at twenty-four, and Byron composed his best 
poem, "Childe Harold," at the same age. Christopher 
Marlowe, who was killed in a tavern brawl at thirty, 
wrote half a dozen masterly dramas, filled with high 
ideals and magnificent conceptions, before he was 
twenty-eight. What sad feelings are inspired by the 
personal history of this boisterous yet brilliant genius, 
the greatest of Shakespeare's predecessors ! What a 
different record might have been his ! Had he lived 
worthily he might have rivalled the great master him- 
self, and equalled him in the universality of his fame. 
It is a pity that Marlowe and that other powerful but 
unbalanced genius, Greene, his boon companion, did 
not come under the influence of such a man as Bacon, 
who could easily have convinced them both that real 
happiness lay only in a life of virtue. Bacon certainly 



HOW GENIUS IS AWAKENED. 1 67 

never knew any of these men, or he would have left 
his impress upon them. 

On the other hand, we find many men of genius 
giving no sign of their power until pretty well ad- 
vanced in life. Oliver Cromwell, who gained every 
battle he fought, was forty-two years old before he en- 
tered the army ; Admiral Blake, famous for his victories 
over the Dutch and the Spaniards, was fifty years old 
before he ever went to sea ; the Duke of Marlborough, 
a matchless soldier and diplomatist, whose victories at 
Blenheim and Ramillies were nothing to what he 
would have achieved had he been left free in his move- 
ments against the French, began his splendid series of 
victories at fifty-two ; General Grant was over forty 
years of age when he first displayed his great ability ; 
and General Von Moltke was sixty-six years of age 
before his name became generally known to the world. 
These are all men who exemplify the well-known say- 
ing, that circumstances make men ; for it was the un- 
usual circumstances of their time that called forth their 
genius. Mirabeau, the Shakespeare of eloquence, was 
about forty years old when he delivered his first speech ; 
Cowper, the poet of common things, was fifty years old 
when he published his first volume of poems, and it 
was after this age that he composed nearly all his best 
pieces ; Milton, the greatest of English epic poets, 
began "Paradise Lost" in his forty-eighth year and com- 
pleted it in his fifty-seventh; Bunyan, the prince of 
allegorists, wrote his first and best work, the ' ' Pilgrim's 
Progress, " at forty-eight ; Defoe, the father of the Eng- 
lish novel, wrote his best fiction, "Robinson Crusoe," at 
fifty-eight; Cervantes, the greatest of Spanish writers, 
began writings in his thirty-seventh year, and produced 



l68 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

his masterpiece, "Don Quixote," when between fifty 
and sixty; and Haydn, one of the greatest of com- 
posers, produced "The Creation" at sixty-five. But 
perhaps the most marvellous example of late produc- 
tion is that of Voltaire, who produced nearly all his 
greatest works after his fiftieth year, and wrote his last 
tragedy, ' ' Irene, " in his eighty-third. Charles Reade 
spent all his time and energy, up to his forty-third year, 
in writing unsuccessful dramas, then turned his atten- 
tion to prose fiction, and sprang almost at one bound 
into the front rank of novel-writers. These all belonged 
to that class of slow minds with large brain that, in the 
long run, go far ; and they form a practical refutation 
of Edwin P. Whipple's assertion, that great inspirations 
seldom visit the mind after the thirty-fifth year ! The oak 
takes long to mature ; but when it does, it surpasses in 
strength and majesty every other tree of the forest. "It 
is not true, sir," said the sturdy Dr. Johnson, "that a 
man's faculties decay with years. What a man could 
once do he will always be able to do ; unless, indeed, 
by dint of vicious indolence, he content himself with 
the exchange of fame for ease, and give no further 
proof of his existence than just to suck the jelly that 
belongs to it." * 

Ben Jonson was bred to brick-laying; Moliere to tail- 
oring ; Bunyan to tinkering ; Akenside to meat selling ; 

* I haT© much sympathy with the opinion of Lord Palmerston, 
who, on being asked what he considered the prime of life, re- 
plied, "Seventy-nine!" If a man has lived a proper life, it is 
only after that age that his powers begin to decay. " A remark- 
able thing about Samuel Morley," says a reviewer of the life of 
that admirable man, "was the constant openness of his mind 
to new imp..-6SsionB. Some modern physiologietis maintain that 



HOW GENIUS IS AWAKENED. 1 69 

Burns to farming ; Captain Cook to shopkeeping ; John 
Hunter to carpentry ; Tom Hood to wood-engraving ; 
Charlotte Bronte to school-teaching ; Michael Faraday 
to bookbinding ; Hugh Miller to stone-cutting ; Chantrey 
to milk selling ; Charles Dickens to reporting ; Bayard 
Taylor to type-setting; Whittier to shoe- making; and 
so on. But they all broke away from the shackles that 
bound them, turned toward those paths in which they 
loved to walk, and cut out a career for themselves. 
What was it that gave the first impulse to the revolt.? 
What was it that started them on their new career? 



daring the active first half of life the brain is engaged in ex- 
tending its telegraph system, so to speak ; that during this 
formative period it is laying down new lines for fresh currents 
of ideation to move upon ; but that, when growth ceases and the 
decline of life begins, the cerebral functions are confined to the 
operation of the thought lines already created, and no more con- 
Btruction is done. Now the inevitable implication of this theory 
is that old men cannot take in new ideas ; that their narrow con- 
versation is, in fact, physiological and not to be escaped, and 
that they are incapable of advancing with their age. Samuel 
Morley was a standing exception to, or contradiction of, this 
hypothesis, for he was learning and broadening in knowledge till 
his latest day. This is shown by his views concerning amuse- 
ments. He had been brought up in that strait sect which holds 
the stage to be an abomination, and regards dancing as an im- 
moral act. There is no evidence that he ever saw a play or 
attended a ball in his life. It is certain that on one occasion he 
sternly rebuked his own pastor because the latter had permitted 
dancing at a children's party. But when he was an old man and 
deeply interested in lightening the burdens of the workingmen, 
he came to realize the good that was in all kinds of amusements, 
and he did not hesitate to subscribe freely to the building of 
people's halls and such places, where nightly performances of 
various kinds were to be given." 



170 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

You will find that it was, in nine cases out of ten, some 
remarkable book or conversation, some startling ser- 
mon or drama, some fascinating picture or poem, some 
striking work of art, some triumph of genius itself. 
The spirit of genius entered the mind through printed 
page or spoken word ; the sight of some masterpiece of 
art touched the dormant spark within, kindled it into 
life, and claimed it as its own. You will find that it 
was the Bible or the Iliad, Plutarch's Lives or Shake- 
speare's plays, Scott's poems or Hogarth's pictures, 
that first chained their attention, stirred their inner 
being, and caused them to entertain thoughts never 
entertained before. You will find that it was some 
human achievement, some heroic deed, or some tri- 
umph of eloquence, that first awakened them to the 
new life they were now to lead. 

While Demosthenes was attending school, a certain 
case which excited considerable interest was tried at 
Athens ; and on the day in which the leading counsel, 
Callistratus, was to speak, Demosthenes desired one 
of his friends to take him to court to hear his speech. 
This was done ; he heard the speech ; and it was so 
eloquent, so brilliant, and the encomiums and honors 
showered upon the orator were so profuse, that Demos- 
thenes, deeply moved by the scene, resolved from that 
hour to 'become an orator. ' 

It was the sight of the statues erected in honor of the 
heroes of his country that roused the ambition of Mil- 
tiades, the hero of Marathon, to do something worthy 
of remembrance ; it was the perusal of the military his- 
tory of the ancients that inspired Gustavus Adolphus 
with the desire to execute some grand achievement for 
his country ; it was the reading of the chained Bible in 



HOW GENIUS IS AWAK-CNED. I71 

the monastery at Erfurt that roused Martin Luther to the 
vital truths of Christianity; it was the perusal of the 
Lives of the Saints that inspired the wounded soldier 
Loyola with his grand scheme for bringing the whole 
world within the pale of the Church ; it was the sight 
of a beautiful enameled cup of Italian manufacture that 
inflamed Palissy the potter with the desire to match it, 
and to produce French pottery to equal it ; it was the 
reading of Voltaire's "Letters from England "' that stirred 
Jean Jacques Rousseau into intellectual life ; it was the 
recital of old tales and the chanting of old ballads by 
his mother that first awakened in Robeit Burns the de- 
sire to distinguish himself, the wish 

That he, for poor auld Scotland's sake, 

Some useful plan or book could make, 
Or sing a song at least ; 

it was the perusal of Percy's " Relics " that inspired Scott 
to become a poet, and the hearing of Coleridge's "Chris- 
tabel" that caused him to produce "The Lay of the Last 
Minstrel ; " it was Swift's "Tale of a Tub " that created in 
the farmer boy, William Cobbett, a sort of "intellectual 
birth," as he termed it, and caused him to begin that 
marvellous career of authorship which rivalled that of 
his master ; it was the fascinating story of Joseph that 
suddenly aroused in the Cromarty school-boy, Hugh 
Miller, "creeping like snail unwillingly to school,' a 
passionate love of reading ; and it was the sight of the 
poor Lombard refugees, begging their bread in the streets 
of Genoa, that first awakened Mazzini to the miseries of 
his countrymen, and inspired him with the desire to 
become their deliverer. 

"When the mind of the youthful reader," says J. 
Brownlee Brown, "is once roused, enchained, fired, his 



172 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

redemption from sense is begun ; he is delivered, though 
it be only in the chrysalis or caterpillar form, to the 
great God of truth, and he will never again be the clod 
he was. " ' ' To every young man of original power, " says 
Garfield, whose speeches are remarkable for their num- 
ber of striking, pregnant passages, "there comes, in 
early youth, a moment of sudden discovery, of self- 
recognition, in which his own nature is revealed to 
himself; in which he catches, for the first time, a strain 
of that immortal song of departed heroes to which his 
own spirit responds, and which becomes thenceforward 
and forever the inspiration of his life, 

* Like noble music set to noble words.' " 

The soul of every man, if properly treated, may be 
touched to fine issues. The great task is to find the 
master-key that will open it and awaken it into life. 
No better example of this can be found than Fenelon's 
terrible pupil, the young Duke of Burgundy. When 
Fenelon took him in hand he was so vicious and brutal 
that his common amusement was kicking and cuffing 
the servants who came in his way ; and he was of such 
an unsociable and sulky disposition that he would sit 
for hours without speaking a word to anybody, and 
refuse to answer when spoken to. Nothing could excite 
his interest; and sometimes he would refuse to eat 
although the most tempting viands, prepared by the 
most skilful cooks, were placed before him. He had 
such contempt for learning, that he would not listen to 
teachers of any kind, and all his previous teachers had 
given him up in despair. Fenelon began by reading 
aloud to him the works of various authors, one after 
another, to which the prince would listen a while Ian- 



HOW GENIUS IS AWAKENED. I73 

guidly, then turn away with contempt. Fenelon kept 
on, going from poet to prose-writer, dramatist to novel- 
ist, and reading with all the force and energy which he 
could command. At last he noticed that the prince 
began to listen with attention to one work which he 
had selected; he became interested, and asked his 
teacher to read on ; and with each successive reading 
he became more and more interested, until the work 
was finished. This was Virgil's iEneid. Fenelon had 
touched the secret spring of the boy's character ; he had 
found the key to the development of his mind : he had 
a Virgilian soul ; the masterpiece of the great Latin 
poet had touched a responsive chord in his heart and 
awakened the nobler nature within him. The prince 
became an excellent pupil and an admirable man, 
esteeming and loving his teacher as long as he lived, 
and presenting an example of honorable living to all 
who knew him. 

Sometimes the sight of a remarkable feat performed 
by a skilful hand does the awakening business. This 
was the case with two of the most remarkable surgeons 
of modern times. It was after Matnessing an operation 
on a college classmate for the cure of rupture — a case in 
which two previous operators had failed to do the work 
satisfactorily — that Willard Parker was inspired with the 
ambition of becoming a surgeon ; and so successfully 
did he study anatomy and surgery, that he became one 
of the most eminent surgeons in the United States, and 
the object of reverence wherever his name was men- 
tioned. 

It was the witnessing of a surgical operation per- 
formed by a skilful practitioner that first gave Ambrose 
Pare, who was originally a barber, the idea ol becoming 



174 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

a surgeon ; and to such purpose did he study and prac- 
tice surgery that he revolutionized the art, became the 
greatest surgeon of his day, and relieved poor suffering 
humanity from the most horrible tortures that can be 
conceived. In his day (i 520-1 590) gunshot wounds 
were seared with red-hot irons to stop bleeding, and 
then dressed with boiling oil ; and when amputation 
was necessary, this was done with a red-hot knife ! And 
this, you will remember, at a time when chloroform was 
unknown. What terrible sufferings, in one way or 
another, human beings have endured at the hands of 
the doctors ! Par6, who had a heart to feel as well as a 
mind to conceive, abolished this terrible practice, and 
introduced methods that were equally successful, or far 
more successful, without the accompanying horrible 
tortures. He substituted a mild and emollient applica- 
tion for the boiling oil ; discarded the red-hot knife and 
the red-hot irons ; and stopped bleeding by employing 
the ligature, or the tying of the arteries above the 
wound ; in short, he did such noble, godlike, beneficent 
service to his suffering countrymen, the French soldiers, 
that, with boundless love and admiration, they would 
enthusiastically exclaim, "Let Par6 go with us, and we 
will march against any enemy and endure any fatigues !" 
And the doctors — the Latin-crammed and tradition- 
bound doctors — why, they reviled and reproached him 
because he was ignorant of Latin and dishonored science 
by writing in the vulgar tongue ! Oh, Par6 ! not merely 
France, but Humanity stretches out her hands toward 
thee, across the ages, to thank thee with tears for the 
merciful deliverance which thou didst afford from the 
heartrending sufferings and quivering agonies imposed 
upon her by unskilful men ! This, my young friends, is 



HOW GENIUS IS AWAKENED. I75 

the most blessed, the most sacred vocation of genius : 
to relieve the sufferings, to lighten the burdens, to en- 
lighten the conscience, and to increase the comforts of 
mankind. 

The mission of genius on earth: to uplift, 
Purify and redeem by its own gracious gift 
The world, in spite of the world's dull endeavor 
To drag down and degrade and oppose it forever. 
The mission of genius: to watch and to wait. 
To renew, to redeem and to regenerate.* 

* What a comment this chapter presents on that absurd 
theory of Dr. Osier, that all intellectual progress ceases after 
about forty years of age! 

Apropos of orthography or spelling, allow me to mention a 
humorous remark (a play upon words) of that remarkable 
self-made man, Mr. Andrew Carnegie, the most distinguished 
philanthropist of modern times, the self-made man who con- 
siders it a disgrace for any rich man to die rich, and who 
has done more for education and educators than any other 
man who ever lived. It was at a dinner in honor of the 
85th birthday of the Rev. Robert Collyer, another self-made 
man, in which Mr. Carnegie remarked, among other things, 
that although he believed, like Mr. Collyer, in the prophets, he 
confessed that he had studied the profits of modern times 
and modern business much more carefully than he had 
studied the prophets of old! — Long live the disciple of the 
prophets of both kinds and benefactor of mankind! 



CHAPTER XIX. 



HOW GENIUS IS DEVELOPED. 

MANY an author becomes, after he has attained 
fame and an assured position in the world, 
ashamed of his first attempts at authorship, and 
endeavors to destroy, as unworthy of him, the work of 
his early years. Though the inferiority of a first effort 
may be evident, this is not a sufficient reason for its 
destruction. If unstained by immorality, the immatu- 
rity or juvenility of his work is by no means a subject of 
reproach. No man need be ashamed because the ideal 
of his youth does not come up to that of his manhood ; 
no man need be ashamed because in boyhood he 
thought and spoke like a boy ; for it is a law of nature 
that everything young bears the stamp of immaturity, 
and time brings compactness to the intellect as well as 
to the body. John Swinton used to say that every man 
has something of the calf about him until he is thirty, 
and Ernst Renan declares that no man can write well 
until he is forty. 

Moreover, these first efforts, compared with those of 
later years, mark the progress of the mind that produced 
them, the advancement he has made in his art ; and to 
destroy them is to destroy the landmarks in his history. 



HOW GENIUS IS DEVELOPED. 177 

It was in these early efforts that the hand of the appren- 
tice gained its skill, and without the efforts of the ap- 
prentice there would never have been those of the mas- 
ter. It was in remodeling old plays that Shakespeare 
developed his power as a dramatic poet; it was in 
translating foreign poems that Longfellow trained his 
hand to original production. Byron's *' Hours of Idle- 
ness" formed so much training-work for "Childe Har- 
old;" Carlyle's essays on German literature were prep- 
aration exercises for his "History of Frederick;" and 
Macaulay's essays on English statesmen were so much 
practice work for his "History of England." Every- 
thing must have a beginning, a middle, and an end ; 
and the beginnings in art are seldom equal to the end- 
ings. Nearly all novel-writers, for instance, have writ- 
ten a score or more of unsuccessful novels before they 
have written a successful one ; and most painters have 
painted a score of poor pictures before they have painted 
a good one. These are their practice pieces, the work 
of their 'prentice hand ; and when they once get their 
hand well in, performance becomes easy, noble concep- 
tions come naturally, and success is certain. 

Balzac, whose reputation as a novelist seems to in- 
crease as time rolls on, was one of the most remarkable 
examples of the development of talent that the history 
of literature affords. At first he wrote story after story 
without a trace of the power he was afterward to 
display. Forty novels issued from his pen before he 
secured the attention of the public. Then he began to 
take immense pains with everything he wrote ; writing 
and rewriting, correcting and recorrecting, polishing and 
repolishing, until he had made each work a perfect mas- 
terpiece of art. He demanded as many as a dozen 



lyS CULTURE BV SELF-HELP. 

different proofs from his printer, and made so many- 
corrections and additions that these sometimes cost 
more than the original composition of the work. He 
wandered for days among the people, inquiring into 
their habits, manners, motives, and ways of thinking; 
and travelled a hundred miles to see a house, a town, a 
person, or to write a few lines of description. Thus he 
became one of the greatest and most successful of novel- 
writers. Another striking example of slow development 
is shown in Ingres, the French painter, who told a 
friend that ' ' for a great many years before he dared to 
sketch anything like a figure, he was compelled to de- 
sign nothing but lines, circles, and mathematical out- 
lines ; and that when he began to sketch figures, he was 
again kept for years to the inanimate, before he was 
permitted to sketch from nature ; and before he dared to 
take a palette in hand and paint in oils, no less than 
seven years had passed." This is the way that artists 
are made ; this is how genius is developed. Every 
master in art has to go through a severe apprenticeship 
before he can bring all his powers into play. No man 
can become a master without having served an appren- 
ticeship of some sort. ' ' That which distracts and dis- 
courages the young student," says Mr. Holyoake, "is 
confounding the steps of progress with the results and 
displays of perfection. " 

It is the same story in every career. Statesmen and 
reformers do not spring into the position of leaders of 
parties and creators of new departures at one bound. 
They, too, go through an apprenticeship; they attain 
their eminence step by step, one step leading to another ; 
often in spite of themselves, and sometimes to their 
own surprise. "I am sometimes astonished," said 



HOW GENIUS IS DEVELOPED. I79 

Abraham Lincoln to Mr, Minor in the middle of the 
Civil War, "at the part I am enacting in this terrible 
drama. I can hardly believe I am the same man I was 
a few years ago, when I was living in my humble way 
with you in Springfield." Cromwell never imagined, 
when he began his opposition to Charles, that he would 
go as far as he did, and become what he did — the first 
ruler in England and the terror of Europe. Sir Robert 
Peel never imagined, when he began his defence of the 
Corn Laws, that he would become their practical de- 
stroyer and the champion of Free Trade. Martin Luther 
never imagined, when he began his attacks on the 
Papacy, that he would become the leader of the greatest 
movement of modern times. General Grant never 
imagined, when he was made captain of a small troop 
at the outbreak of the Civil War, and timidly began his 
pursuit of the enemy, that he would become the com- 
mander of six hundred thousand men and the greatest 
military chieftain of the age. These famous leaders all 
came to their high position step by step ; they went 
through a painful experience, and the powers of their 
minds grew and expanded to meet the exigencies that 
confronted them. Five years before the Diet of Worms, 
Luther would never have dared to meet such a body ; 
five years before the butcheries of Alva, the Prince of 
Orange would never have dared to think of separating 
his country from Spain, much less of making it a repub- 
lic ; five years before the last Tory administration, Mr. 
Gladstone would never have dared to lay before Parlia- 
ment his Home Rule bill for Ireland. Thus it is with 
all leaders of a liberal, progressive nature; experience 
ripens their minds, broadens their views, and em- 
boldens their hearts to great enterprises; the march 



[8o 



CULTURE BY SELF-HELI*. 



of events forces them into new and untried paths, and 
they finally arrive where they themselves never thought 
of arriving. 

Heaven is not reached at a single bound, 
But we build the ladder by which we rise 
From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies, 

And we mount to its summit round by round. 

How is it that Mr. Gladstone is able, at eighty-four 
years of age, to bear the immense weight of business 
and responsibility which the leadership of the Liberal 
party, a national election campaign, and the premier- 
ship of England entail, without breaking down ? I will 
tell you : He has made himself equal to it ; he has been 
under fire for forty years ; he has grown to his work. 
He is no longer annoyed and rendered sleepless by the 
defection or the adverse criticism of friends and the 
savage attacks of enemies. He has made up his mind 
that he is right, and will go right on without minding 
them. He can rest at any moment ; he can shake off 
the cares of state, and go to sleep whenever he gets a 
chance. Without that, he would break down in a month. 
He says to himself, "The ship is in her right course; 
everything is in order ; every officer in his place ; now 
let her drive ! " and goes to sleep. 

As the man grows, so does his work. It is seldom 
that a poet or a painter, even a man of genius, plans a 
great work, sits down to the execution of it, and keeps 
on working, day after day, until he has finished it. 
Nearly every great literary work, like every other great 
enterprise, takes at first, in the mind of its author, a some- 
what indefinite shape ; it grows gradually into form ; 
and sometimes it is not until its author has got to work 
on it that it assumes in his mind symmetry and com- 



How GENIUS IS DEVELOPED. l8l 

pleteness. Voltaire could not go on with any work he 
had once begun until he had seen the first part in print, 
and then he came to see whether it was good or bad, 
and what character the whole work was to assume. 
Gibbon wrote the first chapter of his famous history 
seventeen times before he could go on with it. He was 
thus pluming his wings for the great flight. Walter Scott 
wrote the first part of his first romance, "Waverley," 
years before he wrote the second part. He had thrown 
it aside, and it had long lain in an old lumber-room, 
when, one day, while hunting for fishing-tackle, he came 
across it. He re-read it; thought better of it; and 
determined to finish it. His mind had, in the mean- 
time, undergone considerable development ; he had had 
many other conceptions ; he had produced a number of 
other works, and had thus become ripe for the produc- 
tion of the romance. 

It is stated of Dante that he wrote the first seven can- 
tos of his great poem, the "Inferno," years before he 
attempted the succeeding ones ; that these first cantos, 
being found at Florence after the poet's banishment, 
were taken to a friend, who, being greatly delighted 
with them, showed them to a certain noble lady, at 
whose entreaty the poet resumed his task and com- 
pleted it. The authenticity of this story is doubted; 
but it is quite probable, for there are many stories to 
match it. We know that Milton, for instance, had the 
plan of his great poem, " Paradise Lost, " in his mind 
long before he attempted to compose it ; and we know 
that he first planned it as a mystery, then as a drama, 
and finally as an epic poem. We know that Goethe, who 
chiselled away at ' ' Faust " at different intervals during 
forty years, finally gave an altogether different shape to 



l82 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

that poem from what he originally intended. In fact, 
there are many poets and prose-writers who have placed 
long intervals between the beginning and the ending of 
their work, which has often turned out quite different 
from what they themselves had anticipated. 

George Eliot's experience resembles that of the great. 
Sir Walter so much, and is so interesting, that I am 
tempted to give it entire, as related by herself in Mr. 
Cross's excellent biography of her : 

"September, 1856, made a new era in my life, for it 
was then I began to write fiction. It had always been 
a vague dream of mine that some time or other I might 
write a novel; and my shadowy conception of what 
the novel was to be, varied, of course, from one epoch 
of my life to another. But I never went further toward 
the actual writing of the novel than an introductory 
chapter describing a Staffordshire village and the life of. 
the neighboring farm-houses ; and as the years passed 
on I lost hope that I should ever be able to write a 
novel, just as I desponded about everything else in my 
future life. I always thought I was deficient in drama- 
tic power, both of construction and dialogue, but I felt 
I should be at my ease in the descriptive part of a novel. 
My 'introductory chapter' was pure description, though 
there were good materials in it for dramatic presenta- 
tion. It happened to be among the papers I had with 
me in Germany, and one evening at Berlin something 
led me to read it to George. He was struck with it as 
a bit of concrete description, and it suggested to him 
the possibility of my being able to write a novel, though 
he distrusted — indeed, disbelieved in — my possession 
of any dramatic power. Still, he began to think that I 
might as well try some time what I could do in fiction, 



HOW GENIUS IS DEVELOPED. 1 63 

and by and by, when we came back to England, and I 
had greater success than he ever expected in other kinds 
of writing, his impression that it was worth while to see 
how far my mental power would go, toward the pro- 
duction of a novel, was strengthened. He began to 
say very positively, 'You must try and write a story,' 
and when we were at Tenby he urged me to begin at 
once. I deferred it, however, after my usual fashion 
with work that does not present itself as an absolute 
duty. But, one morning, as I was thinking what should 
be the subject of my first story, my thoughts merged 
themselves into a dreamy doze, and I imagined myself 
writing a story, of which the title was 'The Sad For- 
tunes of the Reverend Amos Barton.' I was soon wide 
awake again and told George. He said, 'Oh, what a 
capital title!' and from that time I had settled in my 
mind that this should be my first story. George used 
to say, 'It may be a failure — it may be that you are 
unable to write fiction. Or, perhaps it may be just good 
enough to warrant your trying again.' Again, 'You 
may write a chef d'ceuvre at once — there's no telling. ' 
But his prevalent impression was, that though I could 
hardly write a poor novel, my effort would want the 
highest quality of fiction — dramatic presentation. He 
used to say, ' You have wit, description and philosophy 
— those go a good way toward the production of a 
novel. It is worth while for you to try the experiment.' 
We determined that if my story turned out good enough 
we would send it to Blackwood ; but George thought 
the more probable result was that I should have to lay 
it aside and try again." 

The result was the now famous ' ' Scenes from Clerical 
Life," which first appeared in Blackwood's Magazine, and 



184 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

which achieved almost as great a success as Walter 
Scott's "Waverley" achieved when it first appeared. 

The experience of another successful lady novelist, 
still living, is sufficiently interesting to be given in her 
own words. Says Miss Rhoda Broughton : 

"I never wrote a line till I w^as twenty-two ; and then 
I read Miss Thackeray's 'Story of Elizabeth.' Hearing 
it was written by a girl not much older than I was, I 
asked myself why I should not write as well. And so 
one wet Sunday afternoon, having grown very tired of 
my Sunday book, 'Elijah the Tishbite,' I took an old 
French copy-book, and began to scribble. Never shall 
I forget the rapture of that first fit of composition ; and 
though the story, when finished, was so severely criti- 
cised by an old friend that I never ventured to offer it 
to any publisher, yet I was so far from being discour- 
aged that in the autumn of the same year (1863) I wrote 
another, 'Not Wisely, but too Well.' I finished it in 
six weeks, in a state of high excitement all the time. 
It lay by me for two years, until January, 1865, when, 
being on a visit at Dublin to my uncle by marriage, 
Joseph le Fanu, the novelist, I read two specimen chap- 
ters aloud to him and to Percy Fitzgerald. The former 
took me by the hand, saying, 'You will succeed, and 
when you do, remember that I prophesied it' He at 
once accepted the story for The Dublin University 
Magazine, which he then edited, and also persuaded 
Richard Bentley to promise to bring it out in three-vol- 
ume form." 

Between the first and the second efforts of these 
writers, their minds grew, their knowledge increased, 
their genius unfolded, their horizon was enlarged, their 
self-confidence was strengthened, their power of expres- 



HOW GENIUS IS DEVELOPED. 1 85 

sion was augmented, and they went on from good to 
better, and from better to best. After their first con- 
ception of a work, they formed a plan ; brooded over it ; 
made an effort to execute it ; let it rest ; gathered new 
strength ; went at it again ; then, as their power and 
confidence increased, carried it successfully forward to 
completion. Such are the steps by which genius attains 
its triumphs. 

No man knows what he can do until he tries ; no 
man knows the power that is in him until he is put "to 
his mettle. There is nothing like making an attempt. 
Never mind how poor the first attempt may be ; to be 
able to see that the first attempt is poor is a proof of 
ability to do better. When a conception is formed, an 
attempt to carry it out should at once be made ; for the 
conception becomes clearer with the attempt to realize 
it. When the mind is glowing with ideas, that is the 
time to work ; that is the time for the artist to seize his 
brush, pen or pencil, and give his "airy nothings" a 
"local habitation and a name." He must not let them 
pass as a mere reverie, or say he will put them down 
some other time ; he must strike while the iron is hot, 
or they will be forever lost. Once you have got a-going 
at your task, you will find the daily occurrences of life 
constantly supplying new material for it ; you will find 
a great number of things constantly springing up 
around you that fit exactly into it. The author of "Mr. 
Isaacs" was one day telling this story to a friend, 
when, on concluding, his friend said, "Go and write 
that story out at once ; it is capital. " He did so ; and 
we have now another great novelist, who writes at 
least one story every year. 

It is in this power of doing that all the difference 



1 86 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

between men of genius and other men lies ; for all men 
have beautiful conceptions and interesting thoughte 
(otherwise how could they appreciate such things when 
they read them ?) but few have the energy, courage and 
perseverance to put them into shape. "The longer I 
live," says Goethe, "the more certain I am that the 
great difference between men, the great and the insig- 
nificant, is energy, invincible determination, an honest 
purpose once fixed, and the victory. That quality will 
do anything that can be done in the world ; and no 
talent, no circumstances, no opportunity will make a 
two-legged creature a man without it. " 

It was one of the sage observations of Addison that 
if the thoughts of the wise and those of the foolieh 
were made public, no great difference would be fotmd 
between them ; the chief merit of the former lying there- 
in, that, when publicity is required, they have the dis- 
cretion to suppress the foolish thoughts. Adam Smith 
maintains that, at birth, all men are about equally 
endowed, and that the great difference in after years 
is due to the difference of development in their various 
habits and employments. He takes, as an illustra- 
tion, a philosopher and a common street portei*, and 
thus compares their careers : "When they came into the 
world, and for the first seven or eight years of their 
lives, they were, perhaps, very much alike, and neither 
parents nor playfellows could perceive any remarkable 
difference between them. About that age, or soon 
after, they come to be employed in very different 
occupations. The difference of talents then comes to 
be taken notice of and widens by degrees, till at last 
the vanity of the philosopher is unwilling to acknowl- 
edge any resemblance at all." So that these great 



HOW GENIUS IS DEVELOPED. 187 

authorities fortify me in the assertion, which I have 
elsewhere made, that the difference between men is 
owing mainly to the training they receive and the 
associations they are accustomed to; that all men pos- 
sess some genius; that every man has sojiie divine 
thoughts, some glimpses of noble things, some im- 
pulses to do noble things, and that no man is exclu- 
sively animal. Every man whose mind is filled with 
admiration at the sight of beauty and innocence ; whose 
heart throbs with indignation at the exhibition of 
cruelty and injustice; whose feelings are moved to 
tears by a pathetic tale or an heroic history; whose 
soul is touched with sympathy at the recital of noble 
deeds or the triumphs of virtue, is possessed with 
genius, and has " all the marks upon him." He is 
endowed with the prime elements, and all that is 
needed to make these generative and fruitful is ener- 
getic effort and all-conquering labor.* 

* The great thing is to get ready for any position that 
offers. Few schoolboys think of this. A gentleman who em- 
ploys a large number of young men said to me recently: 
" For one young man who can do his work thoroughly well, 
a score can do it only half well. Most of them have made 
such poor use of their school studies, they can neither read 
nor write correctly, nor can they speak, spell or reckon cor- 
rectly. Some of them, after coming to us, study hard and 
learn all about the business, and these often get a position 
worth having. Then they go still higher, and finally start for 
themselves. For these are they who follow the five P's — 
Patience, Perseverance, Pluck, Punctuality, and Principle — 
and become masters of their business." 

Don't forget Cobbett's English Grammar. This Grammar 
is not only interesting and instructive, but positively amus- 
ing, especially where Cobbett criticises the productions of the 
statesmen of his day. It is also a good example of plain, 
vigorous English. The chairman of the New York Board of 
Education (an elderly Scotsman whose name I have forgotten) 
told me that in his youth his uncle had promised him Five 
Pounds if he copied Cobbett's English Grammar. He did so, 
and won the Five Pounds. But this was not the only result. 
This copying became not only the foundation of his knowledge 
of English Grammar, but aroused him to the study of various 
other branches. — This copying or writing to dictation is a 
thousand times better than the writing of single or separate 
words; for the former teaches Expression and Punctuation as 
well as Spelling. 



CHAPTER XX. 



LEARNING TO WRITE ENGLISH.* 

HOW is it that so many of those who have received 
a common-school education are unable to ex- 
press their thoughts easily in writing ? Why is it 
that so many of those who can talk easily and cor- 
rectly cannot write in the same manner? This is the 
question which I propose to answer, and for which 
deficiency I shall endeavor to point out the remedy. 

People talk easily because they are accustomed to it ; 
and the same principle holds good in writing. We 
learn only by doing, not by being shown how a thing 
is done. I may look for years at a painter or sculptor 
at work, and never learn how to paint a picture or 
carve out a statue. Now in the common schools there 
is very little writing of thoughts, very few attempts at 
composition of any kind. There is much spelling of 
words and learning of rules; there is a great deal of 
parsing, analyzing, defining, and committing to mem- 
ory. But there is little writing of thoughts, connected 

* It will probably serve toward a better understanding of this 
chapter and the two following, when the reader is informed that 
they were written for Far and Near, a paper devoted to the 
interests of working girls. An article of a similar natnre was 
also written by the author for the North American Review. 



LEARNING TO WRITE ENGLISH. 1 89 

thoughts, which form a composition, and this practice 
is the only thing that gives one the power of expres- 
sion. Storing the memory with words, facts, and rules 
affords no development of this power ; learning how to 
spell and define words does not teach scholars how to 
compose. Except a formal composition about once a 
month in the higher classes, the scholars never write 
anything of their own ; but they spell and define words 
every day. Now this spelling of words, which is abso- 
lutely useless as a mental discipline, must and ought to 
give place to another practice ; namely, that of writing 
to dictation passages from good authors every day. 
This, together with original composition, leads one to 
learn practically how to express thought. There is no 
thought in word- spelling, and the most meaningless 
book in existence (of which most copies are sold) is the 
spelling book. Spelling brings no faculty into play but 
memory, which is the poorest of all the faculties ; while 
in writing dictations nearly all the faculties, together 
with the senses, are brought into play : hand, eye, ear, 
reason, observation, thought, memory, imagination, 
judgment, all these are exercised in the scholar while 
he is slowly writing down the thoughts of others in a 
connected composition or essay. There is no exercise 
in language-learning that is more many-sidedly useful 
than the dictation, and none that can be more easily 
performed. Let me show how it is done, and how it 
works on the mind of the scholar. 

The teacher (or any good reader, for it may be easily 
practiced at home) reads slowly to the writer sentence 
after sentence, or only part of a sentence at a time. 
according to length, taking care to carry along the 



igO CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

sense as he reads, so that the writer perceives the 
meaning of what he is writing, and thinks of it or lets 
it sink into his mind as he goes along. When done, 
let the writer take the book and compare and correct 
every word and point himself. Thus the scholar learns 
by this practice : First, the logical connection of the 
sentences ; hence logical thinking and unity of subject. 
Second, the force and meaning of words in actual use ; 
the idiomatic use of words ; and the varying meaning 
of words under different circumstances. Take, for in- 
stance, the word nervous, which is used with directly 
opposite meanings ; as, he is a nervous (weak) man ; 
he has a nervous (strong) arm. Third, he learns the 
different spelling of similar-sounding words ; as, their, 
there, they're ; pare, pear, pair. Fourth, he learns how 
to punctuate ; an important matter, which can never be 
learned by rules (for in English this is often a matter of 
taste), and which word-spellers never learn. Fifth, he 
learns how to associate words with ideas, which is the 
way in which he learned to speak, and which is the 
only way in which words should be learned. Sixth, he 
learns to compose in the best of all ways, by doing, by 
actually putting down thought after thought in logical 
order ; he acquires the power of expression by express- 
ing thought on paper; and, above all, he acquires a 
taste and feeling for correct language, without which 
no good writing is at all possible. 

The study of grammars does not enable one to write 
well; grammarians themselves are not good writers. 
It is the study of authors, the practice of expressing 
thought, that confers this power. After much writing 
of the thoughts of others, one instinctively passes to 
the expression of one's own — it comes natural to one. 



LEARNING TO WRITE ENGLISH. I9I 

Franklin used to study one of Addison's essays care- 
fully, then close the book and endeavor to write out the 
thoughts in his own words. This he did until he came 
to write as well as Addison himself. Cobbett, whose 
little English Grammar is the best in the world for 
private study, studied Swift in the same way (he learned 
the "Tale of a Tub" almost by heart), and he acquired 
a style famous for its clearness, ease and force. This 
writing and engraving of thought is that careful reading 
which gives training ; for, as Ruskin says, a man may 
read all the books in the British Museum and yet remain 
an uneducated, illiterate person. A few good books 
well studied is what gives one a true knowledge of 
language and the power of expression. 

Another good plan is to write down, as well as you 
can, the substance of any book or essay you have read. 
This becomes your own, and gradually leads you to 
easy and fluent expression of original thought. Gram- 
mar and rhetoric are best studied after one has read and 
written a good deal ; before that, they are of little use. 
And both grammar and rhetoric are best taught by one 
who can, from the mistakes made in the work actually 
done by the learner, illustrate or bring forth grammat- 
ical rules and rhetorical principles ; for these will now 
be understood and observed for their practical value, 
while rules taught abstractly are little understood and 
easily forgotten. By all this, however, I do not mean 
that no grammar should ever be consulted. 

To read well, one must read as he talks. So with 
writing. To write well, one must write as he talks 
His language must be easy, natural, unaffected. The 
error of most people is in thinking that when they take 



192 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

a pen in hand they must adopt different words and 
expressions from those they use in conversation. That 
is a great error. You must never use a word or phrase 
which you would hesitate to use in conversation. The 
simpler the words and the plainer the style the better. 
That is one reason why "Robinson Crusoe" and "The 
Pilgrim's Progress " are so popular ; there is scarcely a 
word in either which a child may not understand. 
That is perfection of style. Look at that masterpiece of 
oratory, Antony's address in Julius Caesar : four-fifths of 
the words are words of one syllable. Somebody has well 
said, "As soon as you write a sentence which you think 
very fine, strike it out ; " for ten to one it is nonsense. 

And then, when you have anything to say, do not put 
off the writing of it till to-morrow ; dash it off at once, 
while it is fresh in your mind, in the words that first 
come to you ; otherwise it will be poorly done, stiff or 
affected. What is written easily enters the mind of 
others easily, while labored productions need something 
of labor to understand them. Grammatical rules you 
must know ; but, as Mr. R. G. White says, if you think 
of these rules while writing, you will never write a sen- 
tence worth reading. If you study good writers and 
speakers, you are safer, in writing, in following your 
taste and feeling than in following grammatical rules. 
For instance, many persons are at a loss about the 
proper use of the adverbs. The grammar says that an 
adverb must follow a verb ; and yet we hear people say 
and see authors write, "it sounds harsh ; it tastes sweet; 
it feels smooth ; it looks handsome ; " which are all cor- 
rect. Precisians in grammar say, "he feels badly; he 
arrived safely ; he looked nicely ; " which are all false ; 
for where condition or quality (and not manner) is indi- 
catedj the adjective and not the adverb must be used, 



LEARNING TO WRITE ENGLISH. 1^3 

That is a principle which the common people, who know 
nothing of grammar, instinctively follow. Again : the 
grammar says we must use an and not a before words 
beginning with a vowel ; and yet we hear people say 
every day, "a European, a union, a useful book, such a 
one ; " and they are right. For these words begin with 
the sound of a consonant, a "Yuropean, a yunion, such 
a wone;"_y and w being consonants at the beginning 
of a word or syllable. Precisians follow the letter and 
violate the spirit of the rule, and say, "an one, an uni- 
versity;" the common people, never. Follow, there- 
fore, yoMX feeling more than rules. 

The practice of writing passages from literature to 
dictation is the same as that of setting type : it is com- 
posing, or setting up, thoughts to be read by the pub- 
lic ; and this practice, or the training from this practice, 
has given us half the editors of the United States, men 
who have graduated from the composing-room of a news- 
paper office, rather than the rhetoric-class of a college. 
Not only Franklin, Greeley, Bayard Taylor, Thurlow 
Weed, Garrison, and a host of other writers and states- 
men, but most of the editors throughout the country, 
received their training at the "case." They became 
familiar with every-day English, with the language of 
the people as an exponent of thought ; and consequently 
they soon found it easy to express their own thoughts, 
in the same way, by this practically-learned medium of 
expression. 

Let any young man or woman, therefore, who wishes 
to compose easily and well, write to dictation every 
day half a page from some good author (or copy a 
page), and I will guarantee him or her the power of easy 
and fluent composition in the course of a twelve-month. 



CHAPTER XXI. 



THINGS THAT HAVE HELPED ME. 

WHEN I look back on my life, I recall three or four 
courses which served me well in the way of cul- 
ture. The first was when, in early manhood, my 
brother and I, after our hard day's work, used to sit 
down after supper and read aloud to each other. In 
this way we read a considerable number of the best 
English books and not a few French ones, besides a 
good deal of the periodical literature of the day. It is 
surprising how much one may do if he only makes a 
regular thing of it. Things done by fits and starts 
never amount to much. I remember we went through 
"Macaulay's Essays," "Hume's History of England," 
"Chesterfield's Letters," most of Shakespeare's and 
Moliere's plays, together with "Gil Bias," "Don 
Quixote," the "Leather-stocking Tales," and some of 
our best English biographies and novels. Here I laid 
the foundation of my literary knowledge, and I con- 
sider this course of reading one of the best things I ever 
undertook. I assure you, there is great virtue in this 
practice of reading aloud. Those thoughts which enter 
the mind through the ear seem to sink more deeply 



THINGS THAT HAVE HELPED ME. I95 

than those which enter through the eye; the tone of 
the voice helps comprehension and appreciation ; and 
there is a chance for observation and criticism which is 
lacking in silent reading. We had many a talk, my 
brother and I, on what we read in those days ; and 
all this helped on our education. 

The next course was when I joined a debating so- 
ciety, which was composed of young men who, like 
myself, had to work for a living, and were eager to 
cultivate their minds by any means in their power. 
Here I had a chance to air my knowledge, to compare 
my powers with those of other young men, and to 
learn something of the practice of verbal expression. 
This was quite an important step in my education ; for 
the discussions among those young men incited me to 
make further efforts for knowledge, and gave me a 
taste for historical studies. 

The next was when, accepting the position of teacher 
in a boarding-school in France, I began to teach German 
as well as English, although I had but small acquaint- 
ance with the former language. Now I went to work, 
might and main, to master this language ; and I did so, 
so effectually, and taught it so successfully, that on an- 
nouncing my intention, at the end of a year, to set out 
for Germany, my principal offered me large inducements 
to remain ; and the Germans, when I arrived in their 
country, would scarcely believe, from the easy manner 
in which I spoke their language, that neither of my 
parents was German, nor had ever learned to speak 
a word of German. The drill in grammar which I un- 
derwent in this study has been of great value to me. 

The next step was when, on returning to the United 
States, I joined a Shakespearian Reading Circle, which 



196 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

was composed of ladies and gentlemen, and in which 
each reader had a whole character to read throughout 
each play. The characters were assigned by lot, if I 
may use such an expression ; and after the lots were 
drawn, we sometimes changed characters with one 
another by mutual consent. Now these readings 
caused me to study carefully not only the character I 
had to read, but all the characters of the play; and this 
had several important results. I acquired some real 
knowledge of the great poet ; I learned what measure, 
and figures, and diction, and the best qualities of a good 
style are; I gained some knowledge of elocution, ad- 
vanced my acquaintance with my mother tongue, and 
acquired a taste for good literature and good English, 
Then the conversations at these readings were not a 
little interesting to me ; for we criticised certain charac- 
ters and passages at the end of each act, and this gave 
occasion for the expression of views and opinions which, 
but for these readings, would probably never hav-e been 
expressed. These talks were — precisely because we had 
something else to meet for than talk — easy, sponta- 
neous, and agreeable. Conversation is seldom very 
edifying where people meet expressly to talk ; for it is 
not always when people try to talk well that they talk 
best. 

I may mention that it was here, among these young 
ladies, to whose Juliet or Portia or Rosalind I read Romeo 
or Bassanio or Orlando, that I found one equal to any of 
the originals in all fine qualities, and finished one of our 
fictitious (can they be so called?) love-matches by mak- 
ing it a real one. This was, as you may imagine, the 
most important step in self-culture I had yet taken ; but, 
although I have no hesitation in saying to every young 



THINGS THAT HAVE HELPED ME. I97 

man, "Go, and do likewise," I do not reckon this, just 
now, among the steps I wish to speak of. 

The next step was when, on entering a German- 
American Academy as a teacher of languages, I made 
the acquaintance of one of the best teachers and most 
amiable men I ever knew, Mr. Magnus Schoeder, with 
whom I began a series of exchange lessons, in which he 
taught me mathematics and I taught him English. 
From him I learned, with the most pleasing surprise, 
that the whole science of mathematics, which I had 
hitherto considered the most difficult of all studies, is 
nothing but a series of self-evident truths, which he un- 
folded to me so clearly that I could, before I got 
through, solve almost any problem he gave me. He 
showed me, too, that arithmetic, far from being a sub- 
ject to be taught merely as a preparation for business 
life, must be taught as a mental discipline, as a drill in 
the art of correct thinking, which makes all other ad- 
vantages follow of themselves. It was, in short, from 
him that I received my first real instruction in the great 
art of teaching. 

The next step was when, on becoming principal of a 
public school, I organized a reading circle among my 
teachers ; not this time in Shakespeare alone, but in 
general literature, and especially in pedagogic literature, 
that we might learn all that previous thinkers and 
teachers had thought and written on education, or the 
art of training young minds ; and as we met regularly 
once a fortnight for years, we went through a great 
many books on this subject, notably Parker's Talks on 
Teaching, Fitch's Lectures on Education, Paine's Lec- 
tures on the same subject, Quick's Educational Re- 
formers, and Meyer's Ancient Nations. In this way I 



198 CULTURE BY SElP-HELI». 

acquired, or rather we all acquired, a considerable 
knowledge of the best thoughts and most approved 
methods of all previous teachers, and learned more of 
the human intellect and its operations than we could 
have learned in any other way while earning our bread 
by actual toil. We read paragraph after paragraph, 
each reading a separate paragraph, and stopping at the 
end of each paragraph or chapter as we went along, to 
offer any comments or suggestions that occurred to us. 
Here I found occasion to bring out what I had learned 
in previous studies and situations, which encouraged 
the others to do the same. At first, the young ladies, 
of whom there were thirty-three, were very shy of offer- 
ing remarks; but, little by little, they gained confi- 
dence, and soon they could talk easily and without em- 
barrassment. 

Let me, in conclusion, say a word about reading 
Shakespeare in companies or circles. I consider the 
reading of Shakespeare in this way of great value; 
quite as much so for women as for men. My only 
regret is, that in our circle we knew nothing of such a 
work as Hudson's School and Family Shakespeare (the 
first volume of which, sold separately, contains eight 
complete plays, among the best, with only a word or 
two here and there omitted) ; for we had to omit whole 
scenes and passages, the very omission of which made, 
I think, a disagreeable impression, and marred to a 
certain extent our enjoyment. I used this very book of 
Hudson's with signal success in the highest class of the 
German Academy, instead of the ordinary reading- 
book ; so that this lesson, with the debate which I or- 
ganized among the scholars, was always looked forward 
to with eager anticipations of pleasure. 



THINGS THAT HAVE HELPED ME. 1 99 

My experience is, that the older a man grows, and 
the larger his acquaintance with mankind, the more 
respect he has for women ; not merely for their moral 
character, but for their mental capacity. Shakespeare 
seems to have learned this at a very early stage in his 
career; for, as Ruskin points out, he has in reality no 
heroes, but only heroines. In nearly every play it is 
his women who show the men what stupid fellows they 
are, and lead them out of the troubles in which they 
entangle themselves. When women can talk about 
character, their remarks are generally pertinent and 
valuable ; for they see traits which elude the male vis- 
ion, and evince an insight into the aims and motives of 
men which is truly wonderful. Cobbett tells us that in 
escaping from France at the outset of the French Revo- 
lution, he could easily delude the men ; but not so the 
women, one of whom saw completely through him, 
notwithstanding his glib tongue, and but for an early 
flight would surely have had him caged. We men can 
perhaps reason more logically than they ; but our rea- 
soning often goes to show that white is black (witness 
the efforts of Ignatius Donnelly and the Bacon-Shakes- 
pearians), whereas women never pervert things in this 
way, but get at the truth by some sort of intuitive or 
occult power. When I have any very difficult case to 
decide, I always go to a woman (you may imagine 
whom) to find out what I should do ; and I have never 
known her to advise me wrong. And then she is infal- 
lible in deciding as to the character of individuals. I 
simply say, "What do you think of this man? is he to 
be trusted.?" and if she says, "I don't like him," that 
settles it : I know she is right ; for I have found this 
out to my cost. I do not know how she does this, how 



200 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

she sees into the souls of people ; nor does she perhaps 
know herself; but she does it, and that is enough for 
me. Perhaps her study of Shakespeare may have had 
something to do with it ; for there is no other author 
who, in his works, affords a better opportunity or a 
fairer field for learning something of human nature 
and human character than Shakespeare. 

They talk about a woman's sphere 

As though it had a limit ; 
There's not a place in earth or heaven, 
There's not a task to mankind given, 
There's not a blessing or a woe, 
There's not a whisper, Yes or Nc, 
There's not a life, or death, or birth, 
That has a feather's weight of WOltbt 

Without a woman in it. 



CHAPTER XXII. 



TEACHING AS A PROFESSION FOR WOMEN. 

THE first thing to be done by one who wishes to 
become a public-school teacher is to obtain a 
certificate, or license to teach ; for no person can 
draw a salary as a teacher in a public school unless he 
or she has obtained a certificate, which guarantees that 
the applicant has acquired the knowledge necessary to 
be able to teach. This knowledge may be acquired in 
any school, or in no school. All that is required of the 
applicant is that he or she be of good moral character 
and at least eighteen years of age. Most of our public- 
school teachers graduate from the public school, which 
shows that the knowledge obtained there is sufficient. 
When I say the public school, I include of course the 
high-school and the normal school ; though many 
teachers never enter either. But the greatest school of 
all is the school of self-effort, in which most of those 
who excel receive their training, and in which one may 
receive an education that will fit him for any position 
whatever. 



202 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

Now if you make up your mind to try for a certifi- 
cate, and wish to know in what branches you will be 
examined, and the nature of the questions that will be 
put to you, all you have to do is to address a note to the 
city or county superintendent, asking him to be so kind 
as to send you a copy of the last set of examination 
questions, which are all printed on one sheet, and 
which he will readily send you. Then you must get 
the necessary books, and prime yourself for this exam- 
ination. The best of us must do that ; for a great deal 
is asked that is seldom or never used. If you once pass 
the examination for the lowest grade, which is not diffi- 
cult, you will find the next easier; for you gradually 
get into the way of solving questions and problems as 
well as of asking and forming them. The Germans say 
that he who learns A is sure to learn B ; and so he who 
takes the first step is sure to take the second, and with 
pluck and perseverance, the third also. The teacher 
who has a first-grade certificate is generally regarded 
as a superior person, and likely to receive a superior 
salary. 

As to a position in a private school, that is another 
matter. Here any certificate may be useful, though 
none is absolutely necessary. You are judged here 
more by your general appearance and apparent fitness 
to teach than by anything else. A position in a private 
school is often superior to one in a public school ; for 
in private schools the salaries are generally higher and 
the classes smaller ; fine qualities of conduct, manner, 
speech, and carriage are more highly esteemed; and 
there are no ever-recurring examinations to be gone 
through. Sometimes the principal of a private school 
puts the applicant through a course of trial lessons be- 



TEACHING AS A PROFESSION FOR WOMEN. 203 

fore a class in his presence, and decides as to his fitness 
by the manner in which he conducts himself in these. 
I once heard of a principal who, laying- down his silk 
hat as he entered the class-room, said to the candidate 
for a position in his school, "Could you teach geogra- 
phy from that hat ? " Of course, one who knows how 
to teach could do this ; for he would instantly perceive 
that attention could be drawn to the material of which 
the hat is composed, to the manner in which silk is 
produced, to the worms that produce it, the trees on 
whose leaves they live, the country in which these 
trees grow, etc. ; and thus would originate a fine lesson 
on Italy and the Italians. But the candidate in this in- 
stance was a novice, who had no idea of such a thing ; 
he thought he must have at least a geography, or a 
globe ; and so he failed to secure the position he 
sought. 

When you have passed your examination and secured 
a certificate, you should address a note of application 
to each board of education within hailing distance of 
your residence. In this note you should state where 
you were educated (if in the school of self-effort, all the 
better), the date of your certificate, the amount of your 
experience, if you have any, and any other important 
fact illustrating your capacity and fitness to teach. 
This note of application is filed ; the name of the appli- 
cant is registered ; and, when a vacancy occurs the ap- 
plicant stands a fair chance of being appointed. That 
is how things are done with us. Of course, personal 
application and solicitation go a great way ; but an 
honest board will give the preference to the most capa- 
ble candidate. 

I should not, however, confine myself to public 



204 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

schools : I should apply to private schools as well, for 
the reasons I have already stated. One of my teachers, 
■vvho had only $375 a year, applied for an increase of 
salary : being refused, she made application to a private 
school in New York (where she was tested in the man- 
ner above described), and immediately received an ap- 
pointment with |6oo a year. When I returned from 
Germany, I procured the names and addresses of the 
chief private schools in New York city; and, setting 
out at eight o'clock in the morning, I visited the princi- 
pal or proprietor of a dozen schools, and secured two 
situations in three days, one in a day-school and the 
other in a night-school. As to the salaries in the public 
school, they vary according to the locality ; the cities 
pay more than the towns, the towns more than the vil- 
lages. They range all the way from |2oo to $2,000 a 
year for women, and about twice as much for men. 
But the men are nearly all principals, the women nearly 
all class-teachers. 

Now as to who should become teachers — I mean 
who, among all those looking for a profession, or who, 
among all those engaged in other and less satisfactory 
pursuits, should endeavor to enter this profession — I 
think that every young woman who has a love for 
study, for intellectual pursuits, who is fond of reading 
and enlarging her stock of knowledge, should become 
a teacher ; for the very fact that she is animated by a 
passion for study and a thirst for knowledge indicates 
that the Creator meant she should live by spreading 
knowledge among others, and letting her light shine so 
as to "give light unto all that are in the house." I do 
not insist upon her having a fondness for children ; if 
she have no aversion to them, that is sufficient. The 



TEACHING AS A PROFESSION FOR WOMEN. 20$ 

love of knowledge, of intellectual progress, will bring 
the rest in due time. We are so constituted that we 
find our greatest happiness in doing what we like to do? 
in work in which we feel that we are ourselves going 
upward and onward, and carrying others along with 
us ; and I think that no work is so congenial, so satis- 
fying to a studious mind, as the teaching and training 
of young people, the forming of the minds and hearts 
of the rising generation. These young people will re- 
tain forever the remembrance of their teachers, and ex- 
tend their influence to all coming generations. 

The teacher has far more influence than the preacher ; 
for the teacher has his audience before him five days in 
the week, and all day long ; while the preacher has his 
audience before him but one day in the week, and only 
for an hour or so altogether ; and while the minds of the 
teacher's hearers are as wax to receive impressions, 
those of the preacher are as steel, being already formed 
and fixed, and by no means easily impressed. Hume 
says that he who attains mediocrity in literature stands 
far above him who attains eminence in trade ; and I 
think that he or she who attains eminence as a teacher 
is in no way inferior to a first-class preacher, or physi- 
cian, or lawyer, or editor. 

Teaching means quite a different thing now from what 
it used to mean. It now means all that is lovely instead 
of all that is hateful ; it now means inspiring children 
with a love of knowledge, and seeing them eagerly pur- 
suing it of their own accord, instead of forcing and flog- 
ging it into them ; it now means a loving and cordial 
understanding between pupil and pedagogue, instead of 
a distant and overbearing attitude on the part of the 
one and a shrinking, dreading, deceiving attitude on the 



2o6 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

part of the other ; it now means awakening the minds 
of youth to all that is interesting and beautiful in the 
world, instead of cramming- them with all that is hateful 
and repulsive; it now means running like deer to a 
place of happiness, instead of "creeping like snail un- 
willingly to school." As it is now seen, teaching is not 
merely an art, but a science ; not merely an occupation, 
but a profession. There is now, for the first time in the 
world's history, a chair of pedagogy in one of our uni- 
versities, which is founded on the principle that teach- 
ing is as much a science as theology, medicine, or juris- 
prudence, and which grants degrees to those who attain 
a certain proficiency in this science. How different 
things are now from those "good old times" when men 
thought that one who had failed at every other calling 
might become a schoolmaster ! 

Yet it must not be supposed that everyone who has 
acquired a certain amount of knowledge may become a 
teacher. A teacher he may become, but not one who 
educates. Precisely as it is not always those who pass 
through the regular curriculum who make the best doc- 
tors, lawyers, or preachers, so it is not always those 
who have had the longest schooling or acquired the 
most knowledge that make the best teachers. Success- 
ful teaching is largely a matter of gift and inclination, 
of loving and liking for the work, of openness of mind, 
and of eagerness for advancement in knowledge and 
skill. One with a gift and little knowledge is infinitely 
preferable to one with no gift and much knowledge ; for 
the want of knowledge may be remedied, but never the 
want of a gift. I have known teachers who were poor 
at examinations, but excellent at teaching. Yet I be- 
lieve that any person with a good natural capacity, with 



TEACHING AS A PROFESSION FOR WOMEN. 207 

a willing and kindly disposition, and a love of study, 
may become a good teacher. It is only those who hate 
the profession, who do not care for intellectual progress, 
that make bad teachers. Seneca, in the following words, 
displays the very soul and spirit of a true teacher: "If 
I delight to learn, it is that I may teach ; nor will aught, 
however salutary, however excellent, bring me pleasure, 
if I am to learn it for myself alone. Were wisdom to be 
offered me on the sole condition that I should keep it 
locked up and not proclaim it, I would shun wisdom. 
Without another to share, there is no joy in possessing. " 

Now let us consider for a moment the advantages and 
disadvantages of the teacher's profession. In the first 
place, it is a fine thing for a lady to have such working- 
hours as those of school-children, and such holidays, 
too ; it is a fine thing for a lady to be able to get to 
work at nine o'clock in the morning and to get home 
after three in the afternoon ; it is a fine thing to have 
every Saturday and Sunday free, a holiday or two almost 
every month, and a vacation of two or three months 
every year besides. The great thing that I saw in this 
profession, when I first adopted it, was the increased 
amount of time it afforded me for study. That, I 
thought, made me equal to a man of independent for- 
tune. I had envied all those who had been able to de- 
vote their entire youth to study ; but now I thought I 
could make up for it. Garfield used to say that all 
thinking workmen make every stroke of the hammer, 
every blow of the axe, a step toward leisure to study. 
No occupation or calling allows the workman to make 
so many such steps as that of the teacher. 

In the next place, teaching children seems a peculiarly 
fitting employment for women, something suited to 



3o8 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

their nature and capacity. Far from being degrading, 
as many occupations of women are, this is and ought 
to be in the highest degree ennobhng and elevating. 
The teacher who loves her work and knows how to 
make it interesting need never fear any difficulty with 
her scholars ; they will be only too ready to meet her 
with attention and repay her with love and gratitude. 
It is the old, stupid practice of cramming them with 
things they don't comprehend that makes them and the 
work hateful. I used to think, as the Germans still 
think, that women have not the capacity of men in 
teaching. I think now that they have, in some respects, 
a finer capacity than men : they are more patient, per- 
severing, kind, and even-tempered ; they have a gentler 
and more winning way, and consequently a more civil- 
izing, humanizing influence on their scholars. While 
men compel attention and obedience, women win it by 
persuasion and gentleness. Indeed, women possess a 
tact and skill in discipline which few men can equal. 
The truth is, however, that the influence of both male 
and female teachers is necessary to make perfect men 
and women : this is as nature has ordained ; for chil- 
dren at school, like those at home, need the influence of 
both father and mother to mould their hearts and minds 
aright. And this is why it is well to put boys and girls 
together in the same class : they exert a beneficial in- 
fluence on each other. "We cannot improve on the 
plan of the Almighty," said a New England teacher, 
' ' who decreed that boys and girls should be brought up 
in the same family." There is no influence better than 
that of sister on brother, brother on sister, and father 
and mother on both. 
. Among the disadvantages may be reckoned, the severe 



TEACHING AS A PROFESSION FOR WOMEN. 20g 

strain on the system which conscientious class-teaching 
entails ; the ill effects of close confinement in crowded 
school-rooms ; the vexations consequent upon the un- 
ruly conduct of ill-mannered or ill-bred children ; the 
worry caused by ever-recurring county examinations; 
and the anxiety caused by the necessity of bringing the 
class up to the required standard. Well, these are dis- 
advantages ; but what position in life is without its dis- 
advantages? And what pleasure would there be in life 
if there were no difficulties or disadvantages to be over- 
come? If the principal of the school be a gentleman, 
and the board of trustees honest men, then much of the 
worry and anxiety are eliminated. 

There is another disadvantage — perhaps an imaginary 
one — which I would like to mention. I do not know 
what the figures are, what proportion of ladies engaged 
in teaching get married as compared with those engaged 
in other pursuits ; but it is said that fewer teachers than 
other women-workers enter the state of matrimony. I 
doubt the fact ; but if it is so, it is probably owing, first, 
to the circumstance that most of our lady teachers earn 
as much to-day as the young men of their rank do ; 
some of them much more ; and they do not care to ex- 
change a comfortable single existence for an uncomfort- 
able double one. Secondly, to the fact that many of 
our young men are getting more and more like those of 
Europe in one respect : they look for a wife with a 
dowry, and prefer a vulgar woman with money to a 
cultured woman without. The ordinary young man, 
clerk, salesman, or mechanic, lives on a lower plane 
than the teacher, and prefers a girl he can fool with or 
make a fool of to a woman of character. As he is not 
up to her, he does not feel at ease in her presence ; and 



il6 CULTURE BY SELF-HELI*, 

would rather mate with the vulgar daughter of a shoddy 
contractor than with the most accomplished teacher. A 
gentleman feels that it is for him to earn the bread, and 
for his wife to take care of his home and children ; but 
the fortune-hunter wants a wife who can do both. He 
is always a sensual, selfish brute ; and it does not take 
long for his victim to find this out. One thing I know, 
which is, that a good education, with practical expe- 
rience in the training and managing of children, far 
from unfitting, renders a woman all the more fit for be- 
ing a good wife and mother; and he who gains the 
love of such a woman, even if she have not a penny, 
acquires a fortune of higher value than that of all the 
Astors. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



IS GENIUS HEREDITARY? 

I HAVE sometimes thought that when God made 
man and breathed the breath of life into him, he 
gave him some of his own immortal Spirit, some 
of that Spirit which is ceaselessly active in forming new 
creations ; and having thus endowed him with creative 
power, he gave him the faculty of speech to perpetuate 
his creations. Thus distinguished from the rest of the 
animal creation, which has life but not spirit, instinct 
but not reason, growth but no development, man needs 
only ceaseless effort to make himself truly the image of 
his Creator. All noble things are within his grasp, and 
perfect happiness within his attainment. 

But man has another spirit, which, for consistency's 
sake, we must assume to be given him by the same 
Creator : he has a spirit capable of evil action, and 
even of development in evil activity. This also has its 
purpose. The good spirit attains its noblest perfec- 
tions in combating the evil. Without evil we could not 
conceive of good ; without vice we could not conceive 
of virtue. Man's task, therefore, is to conquer and sup- 
press the evil spirit, and to encourage and develop the 



212 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

good ; to avail himself of every opportunity for the ex- 
ercise of virtue and the suppression of vice ; and thus, 
by constant effort, to make the evil spirit minister to 
the good. 

Certain it is, that this Heaven-born spirit is capable 
of infinite expansion, of boundless improvement. 
"The powers of nature," says Buckle, "notwithstand- 
ing their apparent magnitude, are limited and station- 
ary ; but the powers of man, so far as experience and 
analogy can guide us, are unlimited ; nor are we pos- 
sessed of any evidence which authorizes us to assign 
even an imaginary boundary at which the human intel- 
lect will, of necessity, be brought to a stand." What 
an inspiring thought this is 1 Is not this one of the inti- 
mations and assurances of immortality? How can we 
conceive of an eternity of sameness of existence ? The 
future life must be, if at all, an immortality of progress, 
a ceaseless progression in all glorious things. "The 
eye of man hath not seen, nor hath his heart conceived, 
what is reserved for him that loves the Lord." Goethe 
says: "Man should believe in immortality; he has a 
right to this belief; it corresponds with the wants of his 
nature, and he may believe in the promises of religion. 
To me, the eternal existence of my soul is proved from 
my idea of activity : if I work on incessantly till my 
death, nature is bound to give me another form of ex- 
istence when the present one can no longer sustain my 
spirit. " 

All great minds have believed in the immortality of the 
soul. " Thought, " says Bulwer Lytton, "is continually 
flowing through my mind. I scarcely know a moment 
in which I am awake and not thinking. Nor by thought 
do I mean mere reverie or castle-building ; but a sus- 



IS GENIUS HEREDITARY^ AI3 

tained process of thinking. I have always in my mind 
some distinct train of ideas which I seek to develop, or 
some positive truth which I am trying to arrive at. If 
I lived for a million years, I could not exhaust a mil- 
lionth part of my thoughts. I know that I must be im- 
mortal, if only because I think." 

Some people speak of hereditary talent, hereditary 
genius. This is a matter, the transmission of genius 
from father to son, which is by no means certain. 
Good authorities deny it altogether, and declare that 
there is no proof of its existence. To point to examples 
here and there tends as much to disprove as to prove 
it; for these can doubtless be met by quite as many 
of a contrary nature. Mr. Buckle denies not only 
the existence of hereditary talent, but of hereditary 
vices and hereditary virtues; and declares that "who- 
ever will critically examine the evidence will find that 
there is no proof of their existence." Virtues and tal- 
ents cannot be bequeathed like an heirloom : they must, 
like other powers, be developed by education, by con- 
tact with the world, by experience ; they must be made 
to grow up out of that free human nature and large 
general capacity common to all men. Every man 
must work out his own salvation. Who ever found that 
the sons of clergymen and saintly persons were noted 
for virtue ? Who ever found that the sons of philoso- 
phers, heroes, and martyrs were like their fathers? 
There is a society in England whose object is to remove 
the children of criminals and paupers to the colonies ; 
and the experience of this society tends to confirm Mr. 
Buckle's view. Its annual report shows that "the chil- 
dren of habitual and hardened criminals turn out, as 
far as can be judged, just as well as any other; the 



ijl4 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

two things needful being that, they be removed when 
quite young from the vicious atmosphere in which 
they are bom, and that the severance from the old in- 
fluences be complete and final." Thus the Creator 
gives every child an equal chance at the start in life. 

The philosopher Locke gives it as his opinion that 
"men have been much the same for natural endow- 
ments in all ages ; " and Sir William Jones declares his 
conviction that "all men are born with an equal ca- 
pacity for improvement. " Now although it is true that 
every man comes into the world with certain peculiari- 
ties and proclivities derived from his ancestors, certain 
moods of temperament which he knows were peculiar 
to his fathers; yet the development and formation of 
his character, the shape and hent which these peculiari- 
ties take, are determined by the surroundings, the asso- 
ciations, the training, and the various experiences of 
early life. A part of that very development of charac- 
ter is the power he acquires of controlling these moods 
of temperament. Look at Byron. There was little or 
no genius in his ancestry, but a tremendous quantity of 
that savage, fiery, devil-may-care temperament of the 
Highland Celt, which he inherited in full measure 
from the maternal side of his house ; and that dogged, 
moody, defiant temper of the Anglo Saxon, which he 
derived from the paternal side. Now had he only been 
carefully trained, had he only been taught to watch 
these tendencies and to govern them, that temperament 
might have been brought fully under control, and the 
character of the man, without detriment to his genius, 
might have been altogether different. His development 
was bad, hence the m.an turned out bad. 

It would indeed be hard if any child found that, by 



IS GENIUS HEREDITARY? 21$ 

the inherent quahties of his nature, it was impossible 
for him to be good. This would make him an irrespon- 
sible being. No matter what his tendencies may be, 
he can govern them, he can conquer them. The Crea- 
tor has given him this power. We all have vicious ten- 
dencies ; some perhaps more than others ; — but we all 
have good tendencies too ; some perhaps more than 
others; — and it is certain that every man of superior 
character becomes what he is, not by birth or blood, 
but by controlling and subordinating his evil tenden- 
cies, and by fostering and cultivating his good ones. 
Knowledge fosters virtue ; virtue is the outcome of cul- 
ture ; and all men know that happiness lies on the side of 
culture and virtue. Every good companion, every good 
book, every good thought, helps the good tendencies ; 
and vice versa. Let every young man cause this truth 
to sink deep into his mind ; for if he persistently strive 
after the good, he will in time, no matter what tenden- 
cies he inherits, become a good, virtuous, and happy 
man. 

The brain of every child assumes a certain character 
from the constant beating upon it of external influences : 
influences which are brought to bear through the eye, 
the ear, the hand, and the other organs of sense ; almost 
through the pores of the skin; — for every sight and 
sound, from earliest infancy onward, leave an impres- 
sion on this sensitive organ, the brain, and cause the 
child and youth to become what he is. Then come 
school-training and business training; the training of 
personal experience among men, and the training de- 
rived from literature and art ; the training of the world 
and society ; and all these together make the man what 
he is. We must never forget that we are constantly in- 



2l6 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

fluencing others and constantly being influenced by- 
others. If our development, thus derived, were taken 
away, nothing would remain but pure savagery. "As 
soon as we are born," says Goethe, "the world begins 
to work upon us, and this goes on to the end. And, 
after all, what can we call our own, except energy, 
strength, and will.? If I could give an account of all 
that I owe to great predecessors and contemporaries, 
there would remain but a small balance in my favor." 
If such a man as Goethe could say this, how much 
more men of ordinary capacity ? 

"We are beginning to doubt," says Mr. W, S. Walsh, 
"whether there is any such great difference between 
one man and another as our fathers were fond of imag- 
ining. The vital force which feeds the brain of the 
thinker is the same force that animates the muscle of 
the athlete. Some men may, indeed, be born with 
more vitality than others ; but the form in which that 
vitality shall assert itself is determined by the accident 
of environment or hereditary predisposition. If it goes 
to build up the muscles, there will be less left for the 
brain. If too large a proportion goes into the brain, 
the body will suffer. Or if it goes into any special 
faculty of brain or body, the other faculties will suffer. 
There are certain tribes of Indians who are marvellous 
horsemen, because for generations all their vitality has 
been expended on the muscles that are brought into play 
by horsemanship. But the other muscles suffer in pro- 
portion. These Indians cannot walk a hundred yards 
without fatigue. The blacksmith's arm, the ballet-dan- 
cer's leg, are splendidly developed, while the rest of the 
body may be only ordinary. What is true of the phys- 
ical is true of the mental man. A genius is a person 



IS GENIUS HEREDITARY? 217 

in whom some one faculty or set of faculties has been 
abnormally developed at the expense of the rest." 

Thus we see that it is not what we get from our 
fathers, but what we do for ourselves, that makes us 
what we are.* 

* " There is a tide in the affairs of men, 

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; 

Omitted, all the voyage of their life 

Is bound in shallows, and in miseries." r^Shak. 

That is, there comes to every man and woman, at some time 
in their lives, an opportunity of stepping out of the common 
rut and entering the path that leads to great and noble 
achievements. We should wait and watch for such oppor- 
tunities, which, if neglected, may leave us forever in poverty 
and obscurity. A good chapter with many examples miglit 
be written on this subject. My own opportunity came when 
I was about twelve years of age, when I was engaged as a 
boy to run errands on the Montreal Gazette. Mr. McKay, 
the foreman, put me at the " case," without inquiring whether 
I could read or not. Fortunately, my mother had taught me 
to read the New Testament sufficiently well to read news- 
paper English, and so my education was begun, which I 
subsequently finished by self-study. This was my first op- 
portunity for advancement. This matter is finely expressed 
in a little poem by John J. Ingalls entitled "Opportunity'*: 

Master of human destinies am I! 

Fame, love, and fortune on my footsteps wait; 

Cities and fields I walk; I penetrate 

Deserts and seas remote, and passing by 

Hovel and mart and palace — soon or late 

I knock unbidden once at every gate! 

If sleeping, wake — if feasting, rise before 

I turn away. It is the hour of fate, 

And they who follow me reach every state 

Mortals desire, and conquer every foe 

Save death; but those who doubt or hesitat*. 

Condemned to failure, penury, and woe. 

Seek me in vain and uselessly implore; 

I answer not, and I return no more! 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



THE TWO PITTS INFLUENCES THAT FORM THE MIND. 

LET me say k word or two more on this subject of 
heredity. It is beyond question that few men 
and women of genius were either fathered or 
mothered by parents possessing genius, and that few of 
the sons and daughters of men and women of genius 
were like their parents. Who ever heard of a great 
poet being the son or daughter of a great poet ? 
Who ever heard that the son of a great ruler or a great 
soldier turned out equal to his father.? Which of his 
many great and noble qualities did Marcus Aurelius 
transmit to his infamous son Commodus.? What re- 
semblance had the son of Cromwell or of Napoleon to 
his father.? What common man ever had such idiotic 
descendants as the great Charlemagne ? What similar- 
ity of character had the mean-spirited and treacherous 
son of Egmont, or the poor-spirited and mediocre son 
of Chesterfield, with his father? Nay, what similarity 
of character had the younger Pitt, himself famous as a 
statesman, with his father, the great Earl of Chatham ? 
Each was prime minister of England ; both were great 
party leaders ; both were the authors of famous meas- 



THE TWO PITTS. 21^ 

ures; both are regarded by many as men of genius: 
and yet, what a world-wide difference there is between 
them ! While the father was a man of noble, heroic, 
great-hearted character, of splendid executive ability 
and spontaneous, natural eloquence, an orator of the 
highest rank, whose utterances struck deep into the 
hearts of his countrymen, and still remain the watch- 
words of patriots ; the son was a man of showy and 
shallow parts, of illiberal ideas and narrow policy, a 
speaker whose sonorous sentences were little more than 
gilded commonplaces, which tickled the fancy and de- 
luded the judgment of his followers, and failed to se- 
cure the smallest attention by posterity. While the 
father was a far-seeing, wise-planning statesman, whose 
every measure was a splendid conception and a de- 
cided success, the son never projected a single measure 
of any benefit to his country ; — while the father's great 
talents and majestic presence awed the king into silence 
and compelled submission, the son's mean capacity 
and narrow prejudices suited the small mind of his sov- 
ereign, and ministered to his contemptible notions of 
statesmanship. While the father supported the natural 
ally of England and Protestantism, Frederick the Great, 
the son's greatest achievement consisted in feeing for- 
eign princes and potentates to enable their troops to 
fight the armies of Napoleon, the parvenu emperor 
who had no blue blood in his veins. While the father 
was the projector of wise and beneficent measures, 
some of which, rejected by the Parliaments of his own 
day, have since been adopted by other Parliaments, the 
son was the author of the most stupendous blunders 
ever committed by any n;ian entrusted with power, hav- 
ing plunged England into boundlessly expensive and 



itO CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

meaningless wars, which entailed hundreds o£ millions 
of debt, converted his country into a nation of paupers, 
ruined almost every class of people except army-con- 
tractors and government-jobbers, and created a stupen- 
dous load of taxation, under which England has stag- 
gered for over half a century, and from which she will 
probably never recover. While the father was a man of 
large, liberal, and progressive ideas, who understood the 
character and respected the rights of the people, the son 
was a cold, supercilious, haughty aristocrat, who knew 
as little of the character and cared as little for the rights 
of the people as his thick-headed master George the 
Third. 

Well might Sir Philip Francis exclaim, at the conclu- 
sion of his oration on Chatham, "But he is dead, and 
has left nothing in this world that resembles him. " Well 
might Bagehot say that "Pitt did not grow, but was 
cast : experience taught him nothing, and he did not 
believe he had anything to learn." Who will say that 
the younger Pitt inherited the genius of his father? 
Who will say that he equalled or resembled him ? As 
well might you- say, that that perfidious, hypocritical 
scoundrel, Louis XIV. , inherited the noble and generous 
character of his grandfather, Henry IV.* 

Then again, who has not heard of persons of no 

* Mr. E. E. Hale, writing in The New England Magazine con- 
cerning his visits to Emerson, says : " I remember perfectly how 
delicately he put me down one night when I had gone down to 
Concord withGalton's 'Heredity ' in my bag, and was full of Gal- 
ton's admirable stories about the continuation of the same line 
of life and thought in certain families, — the stories of the Pitta, 
for instance, and, what Galton delights in most of all, the story 
of our house of Adams. Once and again I tried to bring Mr. 



THE TWO PITTS. 221 

capacity whatever being the fathers and mothers of 
persons of great capacity? When Hugh Miller called 
upon his young and talented friend, William Ross, at 
his home, he found his father "one of the most vapid 
men he ever knew — a man literally without an idea and 
almost without the recollection of a fact " And yet the 
son of this man was a bright, enthusiastic, rarely gifted 
youth, who possessed marked genius for art and litera- 
ture. "The sacred gift of genius," says Mr. T. Spencer 
Baynes, "has ever been, and will perhaps ever be, in- 
explicable. No analysis, however complete, of the 
forces acting on the individual mind, can avail to extract 
this vital secret. The element of race, country, parent- 
age, and education, though all powerful features in its 
development, fail adequately to account for the mystery 
involved in preeminent genius. Like the unseen wind 
from heaven, it bloweth where it listeth, and the inspired 
voice is gladly heard of men ; but none can tell whence 
it cometh, or whither it goeth. " 

Mr. Buckle, who concedes that extraordinary men 
have usually extraordinary mothers, endeavors to show 
that these men owe their distinction not to the qualities 
which they have inherited from their mothers, but to the 
development which they have received from them ; to 
"the tender and watchful care, the intimate and endear- 

Emerson np to take some interest in this; bnt he would only 
take the civil interest of one who has a persistent and fussy guest 
to entertain. But at last he said, ' No, there is nothing in it. If 
there were we should have Weimar to-day full of Schillers and 
Goethes and Richters ; and we should have had Athens in the 
time of Paul full of another set of Socrates and Platos and Peri- 
cles. And it was not so.' I have taken much less stock in hered- 
ity since he made that suggestion about Athens and Weimat-" 



a2Z CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

ing connection, between the deductive mind of the 
mother and the inductive mind of the son, which has 
been unconsciously established from a very early period. 
The understanding of the boy, " he continues, ' ' softened 
yet elevated by the imagination of his mother, is saved 
from that degeneracy toward which the mere under- 
standing always inclines; it is saved from being too 
cold, matter-of-fact, prosaic ; and the different properties 
and functions of the mind are more harmoniously devel- 
oped than would otherwise be practicable. Thus it is 
that by the mere play of the affections, the unfinished 
man is ripened and completed. Thus it is that the most 
touching and most sacred form of human love, the 
purest, highest, and holiest compact of which our nature 
is capable, becomes an engine for the advancement of 
knowledge and the discovery of truth. " 

All which causes me to reflect, that although we can- 
not choose our own mothers, we can at least those of 
our children ; and that the man who chooses a dull, 
ignorant, or unhealthy woman for a wife, be she ever 
so wealthy or physically attractive, commits a stupid, 
an irremediable blunder; nay, a crime; for he chains 
himself to a body of death, and sentences his offspring 
to life-long imbecility and wretchedness. "A man's 
mother is his misfortune, but his wife is his fault, " is the 
witty remark of Walter Bagehot. 

Who can doubt that the mother of Shakespeare was a 
woman of superior character? Who can doubt that the 
tutorless boy owed to her the development of his won- 
derful mind? Hudson says: "All the kings and queens 
that have ever lived are but dust in the balance com- 
pared with the mother of Shakespeare." And yet, 
though thousands of ypUimes have been written about 



THE TWO PITTS. 323 

the kings and queens, nobody thought it worth his 
while to write a word about the mother of Shakespeare I 
We know nothing, or next to nothing, of her ; and little 
more of him. Taking the young poet as the hero, and 
beginning with the courtship of John Shakespeare and 
Mary Arden ; continuing with the life and adventures of 
their gifted son, as school-boy, apprentice, glover, law- 
yer's clerk, poacher, player and play-writer; as the 
commissioned dramatic poet of King James and Queen 
Elizabeth; the friend of Southampton, Montgomery, 
Raleigh, Ben Jonson, Marlowe, Beaumont and Fletcher, 
and the leading spirit in the wit-combats and merry- 
meetings at the Boar's-Head Tavern — what a field for 
a romance by a Scott or a Lytton ! Perhaps some man 
of genius may yet supply, by the power of imagina- 
tion, all we have lost by the annihilation of the materials 
for the life of Shakespeare. 

And here, M'^hile speaking of the character and in- 
fluence of women, let me quote the remark which a 
lady connected with Vassar College made to me the 
other day, concerning the marital relations of Ameri- 
cans : "Do you know why there are so many divorces 
nowadays? It is because the husband, coming daily 
in contact with other people, with men of business, men 
of ideas, speculators, inventors, writers, and so on, and 
with the new ideas in newspapers, magazines, etc., 
grows away from his wife, who, in her narrow home- 
circle, remains stationary. How often we hear wives 
complaining of their husbands being so interested in 
their newspaper or book that they have no time for 
them ! This is because the wives take no interest in 
these things ; gossip is the only subject they take an 
mterest in ; and their husbands have got beyond that. 



224 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

Give your daughters a good, broad, classical education, 
and their husbands will never grow away from them. " 

If a wife wants to keep up with her husband, let her 
read history and biography, and not fiction. These are 
the works that will give her something to talk about. 
What deep lessons of patriotism, honor, truth, and all 
that is noble and grand in human conduct, might be in- 
stilled in the minds of our youth, by the proper hand- 
ling of history ! I feel like shouting to every young 
teacher in the land : Drop your text-books ; cease 
poking hard names and unprofitable dates into the 
heads of your scholars ; study your history thoroughly 
yourself; then narrate and describe to your scholars, 
with all the power of voice, gesture, look, and tone 
you can command, what you have learned in history ! 
Place the noble and generous characters side by side 
with the mean; hold up the noble to admiration and 
the mean to detestation; let them /eel the difference; 
and you will, without ever mentioning the word religion 
or morality, teach them more lasting and impressive 
lessons in both than ever moralist or religionist taught 
his congregation of devoted hearers ! 

Although we cannot create new powers, we can bend 
those we have in any given direction. Physiologists tell 
us that the brain of a man grows till his twenty-eighth 
year ; that is, it takes twenty-eight years to attain its full 
development. If this is so, why should one not be able, 
by his own efforts, to give this long-growing organ a par- 
ticular bent, a peculiar character .? Why should the will 
not be brought to bear on the formation of the brain, as 
well as of the backbone P I do not see why one should 
not be able, by pursuing a particular line of life, to rouse 
and develop special powers in the mind, to stamp it with 



THE TWO PITTS. 225 

a character all its own. We are all constantly changing, 
and we should certainly be able to determine the nature 
of that change. "Though our character is formed by 
circumstances," says Mr. John Stuart Mill, "our own 
desires can do much to shape those circumstances ; 
and what is really inspiriting and ennobling in the doc- 
trine of free will, is the conviction that we have real 
power over the formation of our own character ; our will, 
by influencing some of our circumstances, being able to 
modify our future habits or capacities of willing. " These 
are noble words, and highly encouraging to every young 
person seeking after a higher development of his powers. 
We have only to change our situation, our associations 
and surroundings in life, to change the whole current 
and character of our thoughts ; and hence our character, 
mental and moral. How is it that you can tell a law- 
yer, a teacher, or a clergyman almost as soon as you 
begin to talk to him } He has acquired from his occu- 
pation a certain look, a certain mode of thinking and of 
speaking, which betrays him. Why cannot any one, 
then, by following a certain profession, or a certain line 
of thought, acquire any style of thinking and speaking? 



CHAPTER XXV. 



HOW LIFE DEVELOPS TALENT STEPPING FROM STUDY 

TO PRODUCTION. 

IN the last chapter I spoke of the physical influence of 
culture on the brain, and of the peculiar bent which 
a long train of circumstances may give to the mind 
of an individual or a nation. Another very striking ex- 
ample has occurred to me. Who are the greatest money- 
makers of the present day.? Who are they that control 
the world by the immensity of their capital ? The Jews ; 
the once despised, hated, persecuted, oppressed, mal- 
treated, but now triumphant Jews. How have they 
come by this character? how have they acquired this 
power? It is well known that this race has, for many 
centuries and in all European countries, been forbidden 
to become citizens or subjects, to own land, to till the 
soil, to bear arms, to take part in any of the concerns 
and interests which their neighbors and countrymen 
have taken part in. What was the result ? They were 
compelled to restrict their exertions to barter, to buying 
and selling, to exchange, to the accumulation of wealth 
by the use of wealth in every possible way. They be- 
came the inventors of letters of credit, of bills of ex- 
change, and of book-keeping; and they are now the 
largest operators in loans and exchange in the whole 
world. Thus, having been shut out from other careers 



HOW LIFE DEVELOPS tALENT. 22^ 

and compelled to devote their whole energies to money- 
getting, they have acquired a genius for the acquisition 
of wealth; they have become masters in this science; 
they have amassed millions where others have acquired 
thousands ; they have grown rich where others have 
been starving ; they have, in short, become the greatest 
money-makers in the world. By their enormous capital 
they now control the industries of the world, and exer- 
cise greater power over the Christians than the Christians 
ever exercised over them. The Christians crushed them 
by brute force ; they are now crushing the Christians 
by intellectual and commercial forces. The Christians 
excluded them from the labor market; they are now 
excluding the Christians from all markets. The Chris- 
tians tried to save their souls by terror and torture ; they 
are now grinding up the souls of Christians through the 
organs of public opinion. They have become masters 
of the situation, and have turned the tables on their 
enemies in the most consummate manner. "Thus the 
whirligig of Time brings in his revenges. " As they pos- 
sess the sinews of war, not only princes and potentates, 
but governments and nations sue for their favor, and 
peace or war is often dependent upon their decision. 
The "bloody instructions" they received have "re- 
turned to plague the inventors " with a vengeance. 

M. Drumont, in his lately published book on the 
French Jews, "La France Juive," shows that every 
daily newspaper in Paris, except two, are in the hands 
of the Jews; that all the railroads, the banks, the ex- 
change, and many of the great public offices, are owned 
or controlled by them ; that the Tonquin war was 
brought on by the machinations of scheming Jewish 
capitalists ; that the Tunisian war was caused by a de- 



!Z2S CULTURE BY SEt-F-HELP. 

cree issued by a Jewish member of the government ; 
that wherever a Jew has been implicated in crime, he 
has always been able to get off through the powerful 
influence of his wealthy brethren ; that, in short, all the 
power, wealth, and substance of the land are fast pass- 
ing into their hands, and they have become the arbiters 
of the destinies of a people who once hated, despised, 
and persecuted them. 

Thus we see that this peculiar people, by having been 
compelled to devote their whole mental energies to one 
pursuit, have become the greatest and most successful 
money-makers in the world; and have thus proved — 
which is my only reason for mentioning them at all — 
that the mind may, by being bent wholly in one direc- 
tion, acquire a peculiar character; or, in other words, 
may be developed at will in any given direction. 

It is life that develops mental power; it is life that 
develops genius and character ; it is life that develops 
heroism, and all great qualities. Many a man, who has 
turned out a hero, would, but for the accidental circum- 
stances which gave a turn to his youth, have turned out 
a robber ; and many a robber would, but for certain un- 
lucky circumstances of his early youth, have turned out 
a hero. Circumstances are constantly moulding and 
making men ; and circumstances are constantly bring- 
ing to light those that are moulded and made. 

' ' Great emergencies, " says Mr. Wm. S. Walsh, ' ' call 
forth the great soul. War in the twinkling of an eye 
turns village drunkards and pettifogging lawyers into 
generals and statesmen. Love transforms Cymon from 
a brute into a man. Necessity makes Shakespeare a 
dramatist; accident reveals to Scott his true power." 
Scarcely a week passes without some instance, in the 



HOW LIFE DEVELOPS TALENT. 2ig 

storms and calamities of life, of plain humble men and 
women acting the part of heroes and heroines ; scarcely 
a month passes without some example of a lowly person 
rising to station of command and performing feats which 
do honor to human nature. We have lately seen how 
heroically some of those horror-stricken yet undaunted 
citizens of Charleston ventured in, amid tottering walls 
and yawning foundations, to save their comrades from 
destruction, and how they shared their little all with 
those who had lost everything. We have seen the tele- 
graph operator at Johnstown, a delicate young woman, 
working the wires till the last moment, when she was 
swept away to destruction. No matter how appalling 
a fate may be overtaking human beings, there will still 
be some ready to venture in to save them ; no matter 
what fate is imminent, some will risk their lives, if 
there be any prospect of saving their fellows ; for in 
heroic souls, the feeling of pity for human suffering is 
greater than the fear of death. The other day two New 
York firemen flew with their axes into the cellar of a 
tiaming building, in order to free a comrade who was 
caught by a falling beam ; and they had hardly accom- 
plished their perilous task when the entire building fell 
with a crash ! How the blood tingles and the heart 
throbs on hearing of such a deed as that ! One invol- 
untarily exclaims, "God bless them!" Though un- 
known to fame, though obscure and unrewarded, the 
authors of such a deed deserve to be remembered ; for 
they are worthy of taking rank with him who, against 
a whole army, stoutly 

Kept the bridge 
In the brave days of old I 

One of the most heroic lives on record is that of the 



230 



CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 



late Father Damien, who voluntarily took up his abode, 
while still young and strong, among the leprosy-stricken 
inhabitants of the Island of Molokai in the Pacific, and 
worked and preached and taught among them until he 
too fell a victim of the dread disease ! Greater heroism 
than this can hardly be conceived. 

You may be sure that among your daily companions, 
among those whom you meet in the ordinary affairs of 
every-day life, there are many who carry the sacred fire 
of genius and of heroism in their hearts ; many who 
need nothing but the call of duty or danger, of necessity 
or adversity, to make it burst forth into flame, and shed 
a halo of glory around their names. 

So nigh is grandeur to our dust, 

So near to God is man, 
When duty whispers low, Thou must, 
The youth replies, I can. 
Thousands, unknown to the world, are at this moment 
living heroic lives : carrying herculean burdens ; bearing 
up under crushing calamities; fighting manfully and 
hopefully against dire misfortune ; and suffering in 
silence the most intolerable grievances. 
For there are lofty spirits in disguise — 

Heroes in common garb, whose meek brows bear 
The thorny crown of perfect sacrifice, 

Whose simple souls are kingly unaware. 
Lives to one sacred mission consecrate, 

Of duty death alone can swerve them from, 
Or love that glorifies their lowly state, 

Through fiery pangs of life-long martyrdom. 
They tread with us the dusty paths of time, 

Or lie in uncommemorative sod, 
Unrecognized, nnhonoied, yet sublime, 

Their greatness witnessed only oy their God.* 

* 0. L. HHJJBEIH. 



HOW LIFE DEVELOPS TALENT. 23I 

"He who believes that this w^orld is peopled v^rith 
knaves and fools," says an anonymous writer, "does 
not strive to fit himself for the companionship of heroes 
and angels. When all the illusions have vanished from 
human nature, the cynicism remains; and the great 
chain of kindly, charitable deeds that is eventually go- 
ing down into the depths of human misery, and slowly, 
but surely uplifting humanity to a higher, happier plane, 
are not wrought by the cynic or the misanthrope. He 
who believes in the heroism of others, whose pulse 
quickens at the hearing of noble deeds, whose heart 
glows at the recital of brave and mighty enterprises ; he 
too will strive to climb the heights, and, in any pressing 
juncture of affairs, will not fail, through indolence or 
greed, to do his duty ; he too will be a hero. 

All actual heroes are essential men, 
And all men, possible heroes ; — 

but there is no making a hero of a man that has lost 
faith in heroism. " It needs years to acquire that mel- 
lowness of character, that gentle, kindly, and patient 
disposition which wins all hearts and sheds joy in all 
minds. One must have suffered to feel for the suffering ; 
one must have known defeat to feel for the defeated ; 
one must have felt the vanity of riches, the fragihty of 
friendship, and the uncertainty of life, to gain that wis- 
lom which "passeth understanding." Would that a 
man could learn some of these things while he has the 
health, strength, and lustiness of youth ! Would that 
there were some less painful road to Wisdom than that 
of Experience ! But one must learn either by one's own 
experience or by that of others ; by taking to heart the 
counsels and the lessons that others have learned through 



23^ CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

suffering and sorrow; or by going through the same 
ordeal one's self. There is no royal road to wisdom 
any more than to knowledge.* 



* The following passage, from the pen of Christian Garve, on 
the development of talent, is so instructive, that I have thought 
it worth translating for the benefit of young writers : 

" The employment of a little breath, or of a few strokes of the 
pen, to express a thought, however difficult this may sometimes 
appear, will be found richly rewarded by the distinctness, the 
order, and the vividness which the thought thereby acquires. It 
is seldom that so great a result is attained by means so small ; 
but such is the fact. 

"As long as man was without the power of speech, he merely 
saw, heard, felt, and tasted : he did not think. And before man 
had learned the art of writing, he thought little and spoke badly. 
It is the tongue and the pen that have made man what he is, and 
that will make him what he is to be. His conceptions become 
clear by his endeavor to communicate them, and they become 
logical and orderly by his endeavor to give them a permanent 
form ; and it is these two endeavors that have rendered his con- 
ceptions capable of expansion and improvement. This road, 
which the whole human race has taken in order to become wise, 
is still the only road for individuals. . . . 

" The soul of man is like a painter, who paints either originals 
from nature or copies from good originals. The originals are 
his own impressions, his own observations and conclusions ; the 
copies are the conceptions he has gained from instruction and 
reading. Good painters paint copies only as practice pieces, to 
enable them to acquire a correct eye and a firm hand ; bad ones 
go no further, and base their whole reputation on such work. 

" Everything depends upon your capacity of looking at the ex- 
periences of others (for all knowledge may finally be reduced to 
experience) as if they were your own, as if you had drawn the 
same conclusions from them as those who had made them. 
[That, I imagine, is the peculiar power of the poet and the novel- 
ist.] Before you think for yourself, you must first learn to fol- 



HOW LIFE DEVELOPS TALENT. 233 

low the thoughts of others. Speech is the first step ; reading the 
second. Then comes the third. From a reader, take one step 
more, and become a writer ! 

" And here is the way to do it. When you read, separate the 
thought from the expression : never mind the words, grasp the 
thought : turn it over in your mind ; meditate on it for a 
moment ; then take away its ornament, the finery of expression, 
and interrupt the pleasure of continuous reading until you have 
set down, in a feV words, what the author has perhaps taken 
pages to express. By writing these words down, they become 
your own, as well as the thought which they express. Big books 
can, in this way, be reduced to pages, which are of more value to 
you than the books themselves, and which bring you nearer the 
power of writing yourself something worth reading. For these 
summaries of thought do not long remain the abbreviated 
thoughts of others. Your own will soon begin to grow, to develop 
in them. Ideas fly from one to another like electric sparks. 
When the soul is once in motion, and begins to work ; when she 
has once the thread of thought in her hand, she goes rapidly from 
the imitation of the thoughts of others to the production of her 
own ; she casts aside the scaffolding from which she rose, and 
moves along by her own independent powers. Thus, before you 
are aware, your own thoughts rise from the treasure-house of 
your experience and demand utterance ; and this utterance, 
which now comes easily, would perhaps never have come at all 
but for the practice which gave rise to it." 



CHAPTER XXVI. 



THE INFLUENCE OF WEALTH "THE ACCIDENT WHICH PRODUCED 

THAT PARTICULAR DESIGNATION OF MIND CALLED GENIUS. " 



M 



ANY a hard-working student envies the lot of 
those who have wealth, ease, and freedom from 
the cares of a bread- winning existence. 
But such a life is by no means the most favorable for 
intellectual work. It has been found by experience 
that a certain amount of bread-winning labor is more 
favorable to intellectual activity than entire freedom 
from exertion. Charles Lamb did more and better work 
while working as a clerk in the India House, than when 
he got his pension and had all his time to himself. 

"When literature is the sole business of life," says 
Rogers, the banker poet, "it becomes a drudgery; 
when we are able to resort to it only at certain hours, 
it is a charming relaxation. In my early years I was a 
banker's clerk, obliged to be at the desk every day from 
ten till five o'clock, and I shall never forget the delight 
with which, on returning home, I used to read and 
write during the evening." I have had precisely the 
same experience myself, and this book, and the other 



THE INFLUENCE OF WEALTH. 235 

efforts of which I have been guilty, are the result of 
pleasant hours of recreation after bread-winning labor. 
Such labor freshens and strengthens the mind, and pre- 
pares it for intellectual exertion of a free and voluntary- 
nature. "How unfortunate it is for a boy," said James 
Gordon Bennett to George W. Childs, "to have rich 
parents ! If you and I had been born that way, we 
would never have done anything worth mentioning." 
And Jean Paul Richter, who suffered as much perhaps 
from poverty as any literary man who ever lived, said 
he would not for worlds have been born rich. 

Although, to use Mr. Bright's splendid figure, the 
members of the English House of Lords "enter the 
Temple of Honor, not through the Porch of Merit, but 
through the Sepulchres of their Ancestors, " none but the 
workers ever attain distinction within the precincts of 
that famous temple ; none but the workers ever make 
themselves heard with effect either inside or outside of 
those sacred walls. Like Raleigh, all those who have 
attained distinction "toiled terribly." Lord Palmerston 
never quailed at any amount of labor to attain his end, 
and Sir Robert Peel devoted himself so thoroughly to 
business that he is said to have known the Blue Books 
by heart. Lord Byron declared that at eighteen he had 
read nearly all the great books of modern literature; 
and Lord Lytton worked with such unabated zeal in the 
pursuit of knowledge and in the cultivation of his 
powers that he, like Lord Bacon, "took all knowledge 
for his province," and shrank at no amount of labor to 
attain some "coigne of vantage" in literary or artistic 
skill. The same may be said of Lords Burleigh, Chat- 
ham, Bolingbroke, Derby, Russell, Shaftesbury and 
Salisbury. These all owe their distinction to their own 



236 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

efforts, to their determination to excel in the career 
they had chosen, and not to any advantage derived 
from their rank or fortune. 

Of course, if I should cite the names of those who 
made themselves peers, — those who were not, as Lord 
Thurlow said, "the accidents of an accident," — my list 
of examples would be much larger; but that these men 
won their way to distinction by work, as well as by 
talenty goes, as the French say, without saying. A sin- 
gle sentence from one of Lord Campbell's letters to his 
father, excusing himself for not coming to Scotland on 
a visit, will sufficiently illustrate the way in which 
these men climbed into the Temple of Honor: "To 
have any chance of success I must be more steady 
than other men; I must be in chambers when they 
are at the theatre ; I must study when they are asleep ; 
I must, above all, remain in town when they are in 
the country. " 

Among the nobility of France, labor is almost un- 
known — and so is distinction. M. Drumont, in his 
recent remarkable work showing the boundless wealth 
of the French Jews, confesses that the meanest Jew in 
France has more learning in his little finger than a 
French nobleman in all his body. It is almost impossi- 
ble to conceive the utter ignorance and intellectual im- 
becility of the degenerate aristocracy of France, whose 
whole lives are taken up with pleasures, shows, and sen- 
sations. The men of ability in France, those who have 
created and who now maintain the Republic, are all of 
the working stamp, men who have fought their way 
upward by sheer force of character, by study and su- 
perior knowledge. The men of rank are mere idlers. 

We have had the same experience in our own coun- 



THE INFLUENCE OF WEALTH. 237 

try. Success is obtained by the same means in every 
country. All the world knows that most of those who 
have attained distinction in this country have done so 
by their own efforts, and generally in the face of great 
difficulties ; and this not only in commercial, but in legal, 
literary, artistic, political, and almost every other career. 
I need not cite names ; the fact is too well known. It is 
the inference I wish the reader to draw that is important. 
Wealth and ease are not to be coveted by him who 
wishes to attain intellectual distinction ; that is, they 
are not to be coveted with the idea that these are the 
means to that end. The struggle to obtain knowledge 
and to advance one's self in the world strengthens the 
mind, disciplines the faculties, matures the judgment, 
promotes self-reliance, and gives one independence of 
thought and force of character. Emerson used to say, 
while looking at his delicately-reared little son, "Poor 
fellow ! how much he loses in not having to go through 
the hard experiences I had in my youth ! " And Mr. 
Nordhoff, in his excellent little book, "Politics for 
young Americans," has this capital sentence: "A boy 
who is coddled by his parents ; who sits behind the 
stove in winter when others are playing in the snow ; 
who lies late abed, and has his pockets full of candy ; 
who must not go into the water until he has learned to 
swim ; and whose precious life and health are the object 
of his own and his parents' incessant solicitude, may 
look with pity upon his neighbor, who runs about bare- 
footed, gets up early to feed the cows, has few clothes 
and no candy, and must work for his food; but all 
human experience and all history show that the hardier 
boy has by far the best chance of becoming a useful 
man and making an honorable figure in the world. " 



t$S CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

"It looks," says Mr. John Swinton, "as if the rich 
men kept out of the kingdom of heaven were also ex- 
cluded from the kingdom of brains. Here in New York, 
Boston and Philadelphia are a swell-mob of millionaires, 
thousands strong, — some of them, like the Astors, Van- 
derbilts, and many Knickerbockers, running through 
three or four generations of fortune ; — and yet, through 
the whole ruck of them, and in all their ranks, there is 
not, and never has been, a single man possessed of the 
higher intellectual qualities that flower out in literature 
or eloquence. Not one of them has produced a book 
worth printing, a poem worth reading, or a speech 
worth listening to, — not one. They are all struck with 
intellectual sterility. They sit dumb under the upas- 
tree of their millions. . . . They go to college; 
they travel abroad ; they hire the dearest masters ; they 
keep libraries among their furniture ; and some of them 
buy pictures. But, for all that, their brains wither — 
often by their own vices or tomfooleries — and barren- 
ness is the result. The fruits of intellect or of genius 
do not grow among them. They are out of the king- 
dom of heaven, out of the republic of brains." 

This is severe ; but there is a large measure of truth 
in it. Great wealth is as unfavorable to the develop- 
ment of talent as extreme poverty. But the latter is 
more frequently overcome than the former. Genius 
takes much more kindly to poor surroundings than to 
rich; and while she often takes up her abode in the 
smoky cribs of the poor, it is seldom that we meet her 
in the perfumed chambers of the rich. Genius so loves 
the companionship of Toil that they are hardly ever 
divorced. The most favorable situation in life, how- 
ever, and that in which Genius is most frequently 



THE INFLUENCE OF WEALTH. 239 

found, is that happy middle station in which one has 
enough to live comfortably without severe exertion, 
and in which one can, without anxiety or apprehension, 
enjoy the common blessings of life. 

Speaking of her father's failure in business, and the 
consequent reduction of her family to poverty, Miss 
Martineau says: "Many and many a time since have 
we said that, but for that loss of money, we might have 
lived on in the ordinary provincial method of ladies 
with small means, sewing and economizing and grow- 
ing narrower every year; whereas, by being thrown, 
while it was yet time, on our own resources, we have 
worked hard and usefully, won friends, reputation and 
independence, seen the world abundantly, abroad and 
at home, and, in short, have truly lived instead of veg- 
etated. " 

Some writers seem to think that certain accidental oc- 
currences, certain peculiar experiences or surroundings 
of one's youth, are the producing causes of genius. 
"The accident which produced that particular designa- 
tion of mind called genius" is the phrase they use. 
Nothing could be more erroneous. No circumstances, 
no peculiar experiences or accidents, can produce ge- 
nius. If it is not innate, if it is not a natural character- 
istic of the mind, it never can be produced or created 
by anything. Circumstances may influence, awaken, 
develop, excite genius ; circumstances or surrounding 
objects may feed and fan the mystic fire into flame ; 
but they never can produce it. 

The associations and surroundings of the youth of 
Burns, Scott and Shakespeare are sometimes mentioned 
as of this genius-producing description. Let us look at 
these for a moment. Bums was born and reared in a 



240 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

part of Scotland which is all that is picturesque, roman- 
tic and tradition-haunted, and his mind was early filled 
with the weird tales and idle superstitions of the peas- 
antry. "In my infant and boyish days," he says, "I 
owed much to an old woman who resided in the fam- 
ily, remarkable for her ignorance, credulity, and su- 
perstition. She had, I suppose, the largest collection 
in the country of tales and songs concerning devils, 
ghosts, brownies, witches, warlocks, spunkies, kelpies, 
elf-candles, deadlights, wraiths, apparitions, cantraips, 
giants, enchanted towers, dragons, and other trumpery. 
This cultivated the latent seeds of poetry, and had so 
strong an effect on my imagination that to this day, in 
my nocturnal rambles, I sometimes keep a sharp look- 
out in suspicious places ; and though nobody can be 
more skeptical in such matters than I am, yet it often 
takes an effort of philosophy to shake off these idle 
terrors." And there was hardly a hill, a dale, or a stile 

in his native Ayrshire around which there hung not 

the memory of some romantic tale or supernatural 

appearance. 

Walter Scott had, in early youth, not only heard a 
great number of old tales and romantic stories concern- 
ing the heroes of his country, but lived in a neighbor- 
hood noted for its uncommon beauty and for the num- 
ber of places and scenes celebrated in the annals of his 
country. This was his grandfather's farm, near Kelso, 
on which he passed the early years of his boyhood, and 
near which was the ruined tower of Smailholm, the Eil- 
don Hills, the river Tweed, Dryburgh Abbey, and other 
scenes and objects famous in poetry and romance. 

"These," says Chambers, "fed the fancy and stirred the 
feelings of the lonely and contemplative boy." 



THE INFLUENCE OF WEALTH. 241 

The same may be said of Shakespeare. Warwick, 
the county in which he was born, is one of the most 
picturesque parts of England, noted for many tale- 
haunted spots and historic battle-grounds, "The 
whole country about Stratford," says Washington Irv- 
ing, "is poetic ground. Every old cottage that I saw 
I fancied into some resort of Shakespeare's boyhood, 
where he had acquired his intimate knowledge of 
rustic life and manners, and heard those legendary 
tales and wild superstitions which he has woven like 
witchcraft into his dramas. For in his time, we are 
told, it was a popular amusement in winter evenings 
to sit round the fire, and tell merry tales of errant 
knights, queens, lovers, lords, ladies, giants, dwarfs, 
thieves, cheaters, witches, fairies, goblins and friars." 

Now, although all these things did undoubtedly, as 
Burns says, "cultivate the latent seeds of poetry," it is 
nonsense to say that they created the faculty ; it is non- 
sense to say that these were the things .hat "produced 
that particular designation of mind called genius. " For 
if this were true, all that one would have to do to be- 
come a man of genius would be to go and reside in 
some genius-producing country ; or, at least, send one's 
children to reside there, and feed their minds on such 
idle tales as are here enumerated. 

Scott was fortunate in having just the early influences 
best adapted to develop his genius for poetry and ro- 
mance. "In his brain," says James Sully, "the wild life 
of his ancestors survived as a perennial spring of ballad 
poetry and romance." All that was fascinating in the 
history of his coimtry — its stirring old songs, wild bor- 
der tales, romantic legends, chivalric love-adventures, 
martial encounters and clan feuds, together with a per- 



242' CtrLttJfeE BY SELf-'HELl*, 

sonal acquaintance with its ancient tale-haunted castles 
and reverend abbeys, its famous battle-fields and im- 
posing mountain-fastnesses — all these fed his fancy for 
poetry, for the noble and romantic in by-gone times; 
all these inflamed his imagination with pictures of the 
lives and deeds of his heroic countrymen, and enabled 
him to paint with accuracy the lives and surroundings 
of the men and women of past ages. These were the 
circumstances that stirred, excited "that particular des- 
ignation of mind called genius ; " these were the breezes 
that fanned the precious flame into life, and these were 
the sources whence he drew, in after life, many a tale 
that delighted the world. But it was just because he 
was a man of genius that these scenes had such an 
effect upon him ; for had he been an ordinary man, 
they would have had as little effect upon him as they 
had upon the thousands of others who have heard 
and seen the same things during their whole lives with- 
out ever thinking of making a novel or a poem of them. 
And as to Robert Burns, he was impelled to write 
poetry as naturally as a bird is impelled to sing. From 
his earliest years he took to the rhyming trade ; and al- 
though he knew nothing of classic or foreign literature, 
and had but a scanty knowledge of English literature, 
he courted the Muses as passionately as Spenser or Mil- 
ton, Gray or Byron. Few poets owed so little to school 
education as Bums. Some men are cultivated into 
poetry ; he took to it without cultivation. Some men 
think highly and nobly from high and noble associa- 
tions ; Burns thought highly and nobly amidst the 
humblest and commonest associations. The green 
fields, the bleak hills, the dreary moors ; the varying 
river and the changinp- sky ; the lowing cattle and the 



THE INFLUENCE OF WEALTH. 243 

singing birds ; the mountain daisy and the field mouse ; 
the witch and warlock stories ; the national songs and 
fireside tales; the reading of the "big ha' Bible" and 
the preaching of Calvinist ministers; the "holy fairs," 
market gatherings, and social meetings ; the hard ex- 
periences of ill-rewarded toil and the rough companion- 
ship of peasants and farmers; — these were his edu- 
cators, his schoolmasters ; these were the circumstances 
that developed, not created, "that particular designa- 
tion of mind called genius ; " and these things would, 
had he not been a man of genius, have had as little in- 
fluence upon him as upon the thousands of others who 
have undergone the same experience without any re- 
markable result. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 



WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES ARE MOST FAVORABLE TO THE DEVELOP- 
MENT OF GENIUS? 

WHEN young Marshall, afterward Chief Justice of 
the United States, made a journey with some 
friends to Virginia, and came to the mountain 
scenery amidst which Patrick Henry was born and 
brought up, he suddenly stopped, and, gazing at the 
mountains, exclaimed, "What a grand sight! how soul- 
inspiring and thought-producing ! No wonder Patrick 
Henry was an orator ; no wonder he was eloquent ; how 
could he have been otherwise, reared amidst such sub- 
lime scenes as these!" "Young man," said an old 
farmer, who had accompanied the tourists, "those 
mountains have been there ever since Patrick Henry 
was born, and there has been no orator like him since ! " 
Nevertheless, the mountains had doubtless some in- 
fluence in shaping Henry's mind. Outward scenes not 
only impress, but they shape; they mould and form, 
just as a book or a speech moulds and forms. To the 
eye of genius Nature speaks "a various language." 
The first ideas that enter the human brain are created 
by outward things ; and the last ideas are often pro- 
duced by the same cause. 



WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES ARE MOST FAVORABLE? 24$ 

Patrick Henry was the creature of circumstances. 
Had the Revolution not broken out, or had George HI. 
not made such idiotic blunders, it is doubtful whether 
he would ever have been heard of. His genius might 
have been spent amidst the obscure people with whom 
he lived. He was, I am inclined to think, one of those 
men whose genius, like Mirabeau's, needed an earth- 
quake to bring it into full play. For he was nearly 
forty years old when the Revolution broke out, and be- 
ing too indolent to do much in the way of study, had 
passed the greater part of his life in angling and hunt- 
ing, when events brought him into action. With men 
and animals, field and forest, he was on familiar terms ; 
but with books he was little acquainted. He would 
have been delighted with Wordsworth's stanza : 

One impulse from a vernal wood 
Can teach us more of man, 
Of moral evil and of good, 
Than all the sages can. 

His advice to young aspirants for legal honors was, 
"Study men, not books ;" and no doubt he was a great 
student of this sort. But how should he have made his 
famous comparison between Caesar and Brutus, Charles 
I. and George HI. , had he not read books ? He would 
have missed the finest point in his most famous speech ; 
or, more likely, he would never have made the speech 
at all. 

Henry's hunting and angling life in the Virginia 
woods was, however, not without its advantages ; for 
this was the school in which he acquired that love of 
liberty and hatred of oppression for which he was dis- 
tinguished. There is, perhaps, no man in any station 
of life more thoroughly free and independent than 



i^6 CULTURE BV SELP-HELP. 

the angler and hunter, who, with gun and fishing-rod, 
roams at his own sweet will amidst the wild woods and 
flowing waters of a new country, gaining his living in 
the most ancient, simple and independent way, and 
subject to no laws but those of his own making. Is it 
not natural that a man accustomed to such a life should 
come to appreciate liberty more highly and more dearly 
than the dweller in cities ? Is it not probable that this 
very independent life gave Henry that particularly 
strong, passionate love of liberty which characterized 
him? Gave Henry, did I say? Why, it was this free- 
dom of action on the part of all the Colonists that made 
them so intolerant of restraint, of illegal taxation. That 
is where George III. and his advisers made their grand 
mistake : they imagined the Americans would be as 
submissive to their exactions as the inhabitants of a 
German duchy or an English county ; never taking into 
account the different manner of living of the two peo- 
ples. That is where Chatham exhibited his far-reaching 
and superior knowledge of the people of • the Colonies ; 
for he predicted that they would, and declared that they 
should, resist it to the death. 

Henry was a far different man from most of his com- 
peers in the Virginia House of Burgesses, most of whom 
were mere lawyers, and nothing more; men accus- 
tomed to the red tape of legal forms and ceremonies, 
and with more respect for long-standing authority and 
ancient privilege than for right and justice. Henry 
was not only a lawyer, but a hunter, a man accustomed 
to the freedom and independence of the woods, and in- 
tolerant of wrong and oppression in any form. Hence 
his spontaneous, uncontrollable, and to them treason- 
able denunciation of arbitrary rule ; hence his passion- 



WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES ARE MOST FAVORABLE? 247 

ate appeal for liberty, his eloquent condemnation of 
tyranny, and his fearless demand for united resistance 
to the tyrant. 

Henry had failed at store-keeping and farming ; and, 
having been induced to try the law, he seemed likely to 
have no better success in that, when a fortunate oppor- 
tunity presented itself, which suddenly brought his 
genius into play. He was employed in 1755 to plead 
the cause of the people against an unpopular tax, which 
was just the subject that suited him ; and in this eflfort 
he spoke so well that his words thrilled his auditors and 
won the object for which he spoke. It was this that 
carried him into the legislature, where he pronounced 
his matchless oration in favor of resistance to tyranny 
and of united action against England. So that the ele- 
ment in Henry's style, as an orator, which gave him 
his chief brilliancy and force, his passionate love of 
liberty, may be said to have been engendered amidst 
the boundless woods, the picturesque mountains, and 
the fast flowing rivers of his native State of Virginia. 
Judging by Sir Philip Francis's (Junius's) description 
of Charles James Fox, there was a remarkable similarity 
between his mental growth and that of Patrick Henry : 
"They know nothing of Mr. Fox," says Sir Philip, "who 
think he was what is commonly called well educated. I 
know that he was directly or very nearly the reverse. 
His mind educated itself; not by early study or instruc- 
tion, but by active listening and rapid apprehension. 
He said so in the House of Commons when he and Mr. 
Burke parted [viz., that he had learned more from the 
conversation of Mr. Burke than from all the books he 
had ever read. ] His powerful understanding grew like 
a forest oak, not by cultivation, but by neglect. " And 



hB 



CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 



then, curiously enough, after remarking that his rival 
Pitt "was a plant of inferior order . . , who had 
been educated more than enough, until there was noth- 
ing natural and spontaneous left in him," he continues : 
"The human eye soon grows weary of an unbounded 
plain ; sooner, I believe, than of any limited portion of 
space, whatever its dimensions may be. There is a 
calm delight, a sweet repose, in viewing the smooth- 
shaven verdure of a bowling-green, as long as it is new. 
But you must learn from repetitioii that wearisomeness 
is inseparable from the idea of a flat surface, and that 
flat and tiresome are synonymous. The works of na- 
ture, which command admiration at once, and never 
lose it, are compounded of grand inequalities." 

Pitt, therefore, was the smooth-shaven lawn, while 
Fox was the varied, though uncultivated field. But 
though Fox did not read many books, he went largely 
into society, travelled a good deal, and observed much. 
He got his education by a well directed use of his eyes 
and ears. Brought into Parliament at nineteen, he kept 
his eyes and ears open and his mouth shut until he was 
of age, and then turned the House of Commons into a 
debating society in order to perfect himself as a speaker. 
It was thus that he became, what Burke termed him, 
"the greatest debater the world ever saw." 

Yet his speeches do not read well : at least, they are 
not equal to his reputation. This is explained by the 
fact that he spoke for hearers, not readers ; for votes, 
not admiration. He used to say himself, on hearing 
that a recently-delivered speech read well, "It is a bad 
speech;" and indeed this is very often the case. A 
speech that is conned and learned by heart, let it be 
ever so fine, seldom touches anybody's heart. While 



•WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES ARE MOST FAVORABLE? 249 

many a speech that reads well had no more effect on its 
hearers than a tinkling cymbal, others that read badly 
not only charmed and captivated its hearers, but won 
the cause for which it was spoken. Such were the 
speeches, not only of Charles James Fox, but of Patrick 
Henry, and of Henry Clay. Their speeches, now seldom 
read, were noted for their power over those to whom 
they were addressed. Not one of these orators was a 
student of literature — they owed little to literary culture 
— but they were men of natural eloquence, and their 
whole aim was, not to shine, but to advance the cause 
for which they spoke. "'To show capacity,'" says 
Emerson, "is the Frenchman's idea of the object of a 
speech ; ' to set people's shoulders to the wheel, to ad- 
vance the business in hand,' is the Englishman's idea." 
This was Fox's idea, and it was undoubtedly Patrick 
Henry's and Henry Clay's idea, too. "The moment 
of his grandeur," says Charles Butler, speaking of Fox, 
"was when, after stating the argument of his adver- 
sary with much greater force than his adversary had 
stated it, and with much greater force than his hearers 
thought possible, he seized it with the strength of a 
giant, and tore and trampled it to destruction." 

Henry Clay's power lay in a marvellously strong and 
winning personal influence, and the effect of his 
speeches came more from the insinuating and captiva- 
ting manner in which they were delivered than from 
what they contained. Like Fox, though he was no 
student of literature, and cared not for books, he was 
fond of society, and mixed much among men. What 
he was naturally fond of was farming — he had one of 
the finest farms in Kentucky — and he knew much more 
about superior cattle than about superior books. Earn- 



25© CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

est, practical and patriotic, he needed little assistance 
from books to teach him what to say. When speaking 
in the Senate, he forgot himself as completely as if he 
were a father pleading for his children. On one occa- 
sion, in appealing to the President of the Senate, who 
had the deciding vote in some momentous conjuncture, 
he became so oblivious of everybody and everything 
but his subject, that he left his place on the floor of the 
Senate Chamber, and by gradual steps came down to 
the chair of the President, where he stood appealing to 
him as if none but the latter and himself were present, 
leaving behind him all his colleagues, who were look- 
ing at and listening to him in silent but wondering 
admiration. Such was Henry Clay. 

There is another orator, a greater than Henry Clay or 
Charles James Fox, in the formation of whose capacious 
mind the aspect of nature had, without doubt, some 
considerable share. ' ' I could not help thinking, " says 
Mr. Stephen Allen, in his Reminiscences of Daniel Web- 
ster, "as I stood with some of his neighbors and kins- 
men upon the spot where Webster first saw the light of 
day, that those wild bleak hills amongst which he was 
cradled, and those rough pastures in which he grew, 
had left their impress upon his soul." There is no 
doubt of it ; for how could such a mind fail to be im- 
pressed with the scenery of a country which is called 
the Switzerland of America? how could the thoughts of 
such a man, with such surroundings, be otherwise than 
noble, grand and majestic? No doubt his young mind 
had early communed with those "wild bleak hills and 
rough pastures, " and received a certain color from them 
which, more or less, tinged all his afterthought. No 
doubt these scenes helped to form the mind that took 



WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES ARE MOST FAVORABLE? 25I 

those broad views of the poHcy and destiny of the 
United States, which caused him to be regarded as the 
greatest of American statesmen and orators. 

His daily teachers had been woods and rills, 
The silence that is in the starry sky, 
The sleep that is among the lonely hills. 

For he who has seen the towering heights of the White 
Mountains, or the boundless plains of the West, is likely 
to have larger conceptions of his country than he who 
has never left his native village. Why do men travel 
abroad to see famous mountains, seas, rivers, towns, 
and cities, if not for the enlargement of mind they pro- 
duce? Does not the sight of these things broaden one's 
views and fill one's mind with new ideas ? Was it not 
the sight of Mont Blanc that inspired Coleridge with the 
grand conceptions contained in his address to that fa- 
mous mountain? Was it not Byron's journey through 
Spain, Italy and Greece that inspired "Childe Harold?" 
It is recorded of Goethe that, during his visit to Switzer- 
land, the magnificent spectacle of vast ranges of snow 
mountains awoke the highest enthusiasm in his great 
poet heart, that his mind and soul were alike filled and 
uplifted, and that he lived in a constant rapture of 
delight. 

But I shall endeavor to unfold this idea more fully in 
the next chapter. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 



THE INFLUENCE OF SURROUNDINGS. 

GRAND and noble scenes, like grand and noble 
music, or grand and noble pictures, poems, and 
statues, certainly elevate the temper of the 
mind, and conduce to the creation of great and lofty 
meditations. As the masterpieces of art raise the soul 
of man higher in the scale of being, so must the grand 
scenes of nature, which are the masterpieces of the Al- 
mighty, have a similar effect upon him. They lift him 
toward the divine Architect of the universe, and enable 
him to form noble conceptions of Him and of this won- 
derful world. When we read a great poem, or contem- 
plate a great work of art, we are naturally drawn nearer 
the author of it in thought and feeling ; and when we 
contemplate one of the great works of the Creator, we 
feel awed like one who stands in the presence of 
Omnipotence. Coleridge exclaims, in the presence of 
Mont Blanc : 

dread and silent Mount ! I gazed upon thee 
Till thou, still present to the bodily sense, 

Didst vanish from my thought — Entranced in prayeti 

1 worshipped the Invisible alone. 

And I have read somewhere of Professor Wilson 
(Christopher North) raising his voice in prayer and 
praise, talking with the Almighty, as he walked along 
in the early morn among the rugged hills, shaggy 



THE INFLUENCE OF SURROUNDINGS. 253 

woods, and craggy peaks of his native land. Who 
can doubt that his prayer was inspired, partly at least, 
by the grandeur of the scenery that surrounded him ? 

For his great heart 
Might not resist the sacred influences 
That, from the stilly twilight of the place, 

Stole over him, and bowed 

His spirit with the thought of boundless Power 
And inaccessible Majesty. 

Mr. Thackeray must have felt and acted in a similar 
manner while walking over the Alpine regions of Switz- 
erland; for he thus writes to a friend: "How beauti- 
ful, how pleasant this region is ! How great and affable 
the landscape is ! It is delightful to be in the midst of 
such scenes — the mind gets generous ideas from them. 
It is keeping good company ; it is keeping away mean 
thoughts." The great preacher, Frederick Robertson, 
once fell into great doubt and despondency touching 
the truth of Revelation and the condition of his own 
soul ; and it was not until he had visited the giant 
mountains of the Tyrol that he recovered his faith and 
peace of mind. Under the shadow of the mighty Alps, 
in the presence of the most stupendous works of the 
Creator, he found that peace, that assurance of faith, 
that conviction of the existence of a Heavenly Father, 
which no books, no sermons, no arguments of men 
could give him. John Foster said, regarding a beauti- 
ful rural spot where he was to reside, that he "hoped 
to derive considerable influence toward simplicity and 
refinement from his pathetic conversations with so 
many charming natural scenes." "I passed my child- 
hood among some of the grandest scenery of the 
North," says Mr. Edward Grieg, the Norwegian com- 



254 INTELLECTUAL PURSUITS. 

poser, " and ever since I can remember the beauty 
of my country has impressed me as something won- 
derful and magnificent beyond expression. It is our 
mountains — our lakes and forests — which have influ- 
enced my work far more than any human being has 
done ; and even now, though I am forty, they have the 
self-same power over me." And Thomas Gray, the 
poet, after a visit to the Scottish mountains, exclaims : 
" These mountains are ecstatic and ought to be visited 
in pilgrimage once a year. None but these stupendous 
creations of God know how to join so much beauty 
with so much horror. A fig for your poets, painters, 
gardeners, and clergymen that have not been among 
them; their imaginations can be made up of noth- 
ing but bowling-greens, flowering shrubs, horse- 
ponds, Fleet ditches, shell grottoes, and Chinese 
rails." Scott's well-known lines, 

O Caledonia, stern and wild. 

Meet nurse for a poetic child! 

Land of brown heath and shaggy wood. 

Land of the mountain and the flood, 

plainly indicate that the poet was himself of opinion 
that his native country was favorable to poetic genius. 
And Wordsworth, in many a beautiful passage, ex- 
pressly declares that natural objects had, in his boy- 
hood and youth, the effect of calling forth elevated 
thoughts and noble conceptions : 

I cannot paint 
What then I was. The bounding cataract 
Haunted me like a passion; the tall rock. 
The mountains, and the deep and gloomy wood. 
Their colors and their forms, were then to me 
An appetite; a feeling and a love 
That had iio need of a remoter charm. 



THE INFLUENCE OF SURROUNDINGS. 255 

By thought snpplied, or any interest 
Unborrowed from the eye. And I hare felt 
A presence that disturbs me with the joy 
Of elevated thoughts ; a sense sublime 
Of something far more deeply interfused, 
Whose dwelling is the light of setting sun, 
And the round ocean, and the living air, 
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man ; 
A motion and a spirit that impels 
All thinking things, all objects of all thought. 
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still 
A lover of the meadows and the woods 
And mountains, and of all that we behold 
From this green earth ; of all the mighty world 
Of eye and ear ; both what they half create 
And what perceive ; well pleased to recognize 
In nature, and the language of the sense. 
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, 
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul 
Of all my moral being. 

Grand scenery has always been a source of inspira- 
tion to the poets ; and the history of existing peoples 
seems to point strongly to the conclusion that a moun- 
tainous country, a country diversified by hill, dale, 
river, glen, lake, the sea and all its shore wonders, is 
much more likely to foster poetic genius than a dull, 
flat, monotonous country, which is apt to have a dreary 
and depressing influence on the mind. Mr. Buckle at- 
tributes the wonderful advancement of the Greeks in 
civilization to the mild and beneficent climate and the 
varied scenery of the country in which they lived, and 
the low civilization of the Hindoos to the fear-inspiring 
phenomena and enervating atmosphere of the country 
in which they live. The climate and scenery of Greece 
were such as to allow the reason and imagination of 



i^6 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

its inhabitants full scope for action ; there was nothing 
in nature to appall or to depress them, and hence every- 
thing was favorable for a natural and steady develop- 
ment of their powers and their consequent progress in 
civilization ; whereas the climate and scenery of India 
are such as to excite the imagination to an abnormal 
degree, to raise images of horror and apprehension, to 
foster superstition, and to keep its inhabitants in dread 
subjection to supernatural powers. In fact every race 
becomes, in the course of ages, what it is largely 
through the influence of the climate, scenery, and soil 
of the country in which it lives. The soil of Europe 
generally is such as to compel the inhabitants to work 
sufficiently hard, in earning their bread, to strengthen 
their bodies and invigorate their minds ; while the soil 
of India is such as to enable the inhabitants to live 
without much work, and thus their idle bodies become 
feeble and their intellects weak. So also with other 
countries. While the inhabitants of North America are 
distinguished for energy, perseverance, and intelligence, 
those of South America are noted for indolence, super- 
stition and ignorance. 

The contrast between the territory of Switzerland and 
that of Russia, great as it is, is not greater than that 
between the character and condition of their respective 
inhabitants. The Swiss are a manly, independent, free 
people ; the Russians are a servile, submissive, enslaved 
people ; the Swiss are characterized by wealth, official 
honesty, and independent thinking ; the Russians by 
poverty, corruption, and craven superstition. Instead 
of slavery, degradation, and ignorance, the Swiss have 
freedom, manly character, and enlightenment; instead 
of daily fear of the dread powers that govern them, 



THE INFLUENCE OF SURROUNDINGS. 257 

they have steady confidence in the powers by which 
they govern themselves. In fact this little country pre- 
sents to the world to-day the one true example of an 
honest democratic government, a "government of the 
people, for the people, and by the people ; " while 
Russia presents the most striking example of an un- 
mitigated and remorseless despotism. In Switzerland 
every legislative enactment, before it becomes a law, 
must first secure the sanction of the assembled people, 
voting in cantons, communes, or as a confederacy ; 
every branch of trade and industry, including banking 
and railroads, is managed for the benefit of the whole 
people; there is no place for political trimmers and 
tricksters in this country ; and altogether the Swiss are 
about as free and happy, as peaceful and prosperous, 
as any people on the face of the globe. No country 
has more schools and less illiteracy; no country has 
fewer criminals and less pauperism ; no country has so 
many landowners and so few propertyless people ; 
none so many (proportionately) comfortable and well- 
to-do citizens, and none so few monopolists and mil- 
lionaires. So that a greater contrast, in every respect, 
than that between Russia and Switzerland cannot be 
conceived.* 



* See Mr. J. W. Sullivan's admirable little book, " Direct Leg- 
islation of the Citizenship," which gives a complete account of 
the Swiss system of government, and shwws how we may imitate 
it. To th© young American who wishes xo become familiar with 
the best methods of improving our city governments, this little 
book will be an invaluable aid ; and to the thoughtful citi- 
zen who is looking for some way of overthrowing the corrup- 
tionists, this book will offer the means ready to his hand. Bum' 
boldt Library Co., New York. 



25S CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

The face of a country has also a strong influence on 
the disposition or temperament of its inhabitants. While 
the dwellers in mountainous countries are generally of 
a cheerful, happy disposition, those of level, monoto- 
nous countries are strongly inclined to melancholy and 
pessimistic views. The people of the Alps, for instance, 
especially the peasants of the Tyrol, are celebrated for 
their lively disposition and their habit of constantly sing- 
ing at their labor — in fact, Tyrolese songs are almost 
as famous as Scottish songs — whilst the Russians, the 
inhabitants of the plain, are noted for their sad disposi- 
tion and their strong inclination toward melancholy 
views of life. Mr. Noble, in his interesting book on 
Russia, has this striking passage : 

"The tendency universal in Russia is to pessimism. 
This penetrates all spheres of thought, gives its hues to 
every coterie and school, creates resemblances between 
the most diverse productions of the pen, restores as 
with a bond of gloom the shattered solidarity of society. 
. . . Not to be pessimistic in Russia is to be divorced 
fromall contact and sympathy with the national life ; to 
be cut off, either by foreign birth or by some monstrous 
denial of nature, from the tree of the national develop- 
ment. All influences and epochs have contributed to 
the tendency. A monotonous landscape, the loss of 
free institutions, Byzantinism with its cruel law-giving 
and ascetic tyranny, the fiscal burdens of the new State, 
the antitheses suggested by European culture, the crush- 
ing of the individual, the elimination from Russian life 
of all those healthy activities which engage citizenship 
in other countries, the harassing restrictions upon 
thought and movement, the State-created frivolities of 
society — all these have contributed to the gloom of the 



THE INFLUENCE OF SURROUNDINGS. 259 

mental atmosphere, until to-day pessimism may be said 
to be the normal condition of all Russian thought. " 

And this quality is a strong characteristic of the Rus- 
sian literature that is now fast coming to the knowledge 
of the world through translations. When Pushkin heard 
Gogol's masterpiece, "Dead Souls," read to him, he 
burst into tears and exclaimed, "It is the picture of the 
universal platitude of the country — the sad thing, our 
poor Russia ! "' * 

But the difference in the amount of mental activity is 
the striking fact. Scotland, with her 4,6oo,000 inhabi- 
tants and 31,000 square miles, has produced twenty 
times as many men of eminence in art and literature as 
Russia with her 100,000,000 inhabitants and 2,000,000 
square miles. This, it may be said, is not because the 
one country is mountainous and picturesque, the other 
flat and dull ; but because the one is free and the other 

* If the reader wishes to know something of Rnssia and its 
people, let him read the astounding but evidently true descrip- 
tion given in the work entitled, " Russian Traits and Terrors," by 
E. B. Lannin, which is the collective signature of several writers 
in the Fortnightly Review . The Russians of to-day are so low 
and debased in character that not one in a hundred ever attempts 
to speak the truth ; not one in a thousand dares to say a word 
against the daily atrocities committed by the authorities ; and the 
great mass of the people are hopelessly sunk in sloth, poverty, im- 
morality, and intellectual slavery. " The extent to which fatalism 
and shiftlessness," says this author, " with all the other vices of 
which they are the source, have eaten into the Russian character, 
can with difficulty be realized by those whose knowledge of the 
people is not derived from personal experience. Even in things 
that interest him most, the typical Russian is strangely apathetic, 
and the terribly significant expression, ' I waved my hand at it,' 
meaning, ' I have given up all further thought of it,' is daily and 
hourly heard from men who, at the first little obstacle they ev,- 



26o CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

enslaved. But what made the one free and the other 
enslaved? Is it not because mountain fastnesses inspire 
courage, create a spirit of independence, a defiance of 
danger, and a love of freedom ? Is it not because a flat 
country produces an indifference to liberty, and a dread 
of resisting tyranny ? Is it not because a mountainous 
country breeds a strong, hardy race, sound in wind and 
limb, and noted for manly thinking and manly feeling ? 
The mountaineer is accustomed from earliest youth to 
face danger and difficulty ; to look upon dizzy precipices 
and overhanging rocks without fear ; to encounter fierce 
storms and roaring torrents without flinching; — while 
the inhabitant of the plain, living always on a level sur- 
face, where nothing hazardous is ever required of him, 
is seldom or never required to exert great energy of body 
or mind, and remains an undeveloped creature to the 
end of the chapter : his environment engenders timidity 

counter, withdraw from the race within easy distance of the goal. 
. . . This combination of fatalism, will paralysis, indifference, 
and grovelling instincts gives us a clew to the marvellous endur- 
ance of the masses, whose mode of life is at times more bleak, 
cheerless, and less human than that of the grass-eating monks of 
Mesopotamia described by Lozomen, whose sufferings were at 
least the result of choice. For agea they have been taught by 
word of mouth and by the lessons of daily experience to take no 
thought for the morrow ; they have been trained by the govern- 
ment and counselled by the church to look to others for all 
things needful, to put their trust in princes and powers, visible 
and invisible ; and the outcome of this habit is on the one hand 
a degree of shiftlessness compared with which Mr. Micawber's 
waiting for something to turn up ia sublimated worldly wisdom ; 
and on the other hand a lively expectation of daily miracles in 
which the most spoiled miracle-worker of the Middle Ages never 
ventured to indulge . " So much for a country whose chief phys- 
ical features are plains, ponds, and puddles. 



THE INFLUENCE OF SURROUNDINGS. 26 1 

and a submissive compliance with all that his superiors 
may require, and one tyrant may hold him and his 
entire race in abject subjection. 

It was our own New Englanders, notably the Green 
Mountain Boys, who were among the first and foremost 
in resisting British aggression in this country ; and they 
have, all along the line, since the foundation of the Re- 
public, been the chief defenders of its laws and liberties. 
Who did so much to establish the Republic as Adams, 
Otis, Warren, and Franklin? Who did so much in re- 
sisting the encroachments of the Slave Power as Phillips, 
Parker, Garrison, Sumner, Channing, and Greeley? What 
Southerners or Westerners did so much for liberty as 
these giant New Englanders? If you look over a his- 
tory of eminent Americans, you will find that the ablest 
among them, as well as the greatest number, sprang 
from the rock-bound and mountainous coasts of New 
England ; you will find that the greatest of our orators, 
poets, preachers, artists, inventors, hail from Yankee- 
land. There has recently been published a little book 
in which the author gives an account of no fewer than 
one hundred and ninety-one eminent men and women, 
artists, orators, poets and prose-writers, who were born 
or who lived, spoke and wrote within the borders of 
Essex County, Massachusetts. What fiat region can 
show a record like that? 

You will find few hailing from the dead-level prairies 
of the West, and still fewer from the low-lying regions 
of the South. Most of the Southern States, where negro 
slavery took such firm root and flourished so long; 
where culture among the common people has ever been 
at the lowest ebb, and where brutal sentiments and 
brutal actions have long held sway, lie in the low plain 



262 CULTURE BY SELP-HELiP. 

of the Mississippi Valley and in the swampy region of 
the Gulf, and have little to recommend them, in the way 
of scenery, beyond their rice-bearing swamps, their 
cotton-growing plains, and their oozy cane-growing 
plantations. 

Who ever heard of a flat country breeding a race of 
bards and warriors such as Wales and Scotland have 
bred? Who ever heard of a mountainous country 
breeding a race of slaves, such as Russia has bred? 
What a different history would have been that of Ireland 
had her territory been as mountainous as that of Wales 
or Scotland !_ Neither the Romans nor the Danes, the 
Saxons nor the Normans, were ever able to conquer 
Scotland, whose inhabitants were as unsubduable as the 
falcon and the eagle of their mountain fastnesses. The 
people of such a country are moulded by the elements 
and the objects that surround them; their souls are in 
unison with their everlasting hills, their roaring cata- 
racts, and their vast precipices ; and they are determined 
to be 

Free as the torrents that leap their locks 

And plough their valleys, without asking leave ; 

Or as their peaks, that wear their caps of snow 

In very presence of the regal Bun ! * 

* A writer in Lippincott's Magazine for September, 1885, speak- 
ing of the influences contributed by foreign nations to form the 
American character, makes the following remarkable statement : 
"Scotland's contribution to our foreign-born population is given 
in the census as 170,136, or two and a half per cent, of the whole 
population. This relative strength is absurdly out of proportion 
to the figure which that nationality cuts in the Annals of the 
Union. No other country has given us relatively — positively, 
might almost be said — such an array of leading names. Among 
statesmen, there are Henry, Monroe, Madison, Hamilton, Jackson, 



THE INFLUEI^CE OF SURROUNDINGS. 263 

Taylor, Bachanan, Calhoun, Polk, Douglas, Houston, Brecken- 
ridge, Randolph, Beck ; among soldiers, Scott, Grant, McClellan, 
Stirling, Mercer, Macomb, St. Olair, Stonewall Jackson, Sydney 
Johnston and J. E. Johnston ; and in our slender naval register, 
Paul Jones, Stewart, and Macdonough — all of Scottish lineage, 
and exemplifying generally in their careers that combination of 
common sense, intense conviction, and dogged obstinacy which is 
usually ascribed to the race." How largely this list might be in- 
creased if we picked out those Americans of Scottish lineage who 
have distinguished themselves in literature, art, and science ! " In 
nothing has this small country," says Dr. Halsey, " been more pre- 
eminently distinguished than in that brilliant galaiy of author- 
ship which stretches its starry belt across the whole literary fir- 
mament. In every department of literature, scien,ce, art, inven- 
tion, philosophy, her writers have risen to the first rank, and 
sent their influence to the ends of the earth.'' That tremendous 
energy, which the Scots formerly spent in feats of war, they have 
now turned into the pursuits of peace, and won thereby far 
nobler victories than they ever gained in war. Curran, in his 
famous defence of Rowan, speaks of Scotland as a "nation oast 
in the happy medium between submissive poverty and pampered 
wealth — cool and ardent, adventurous and persevering, winging 
her eagle flight against the blaze of every science, with an eye 
that never winks, and a wing that never tires ; crowned as she is 
with the spoils of every art, and decked with the wealth of every 
muse, from the deep and scrutinizing researches of her Hume to 
the sweet and simple, but not less sublime and pathetic, mo- 
rality of her Burns." No wonder Scotchmen are proud of their 
country . 

Let me say a word here about Celtic literature. When Tom 
Moore, who wrote a history of Ireland, saw on the tables of the 
historian of Celtic literature great manuscript books, containing 
long poems and histories in the Erse or Gaelic language, not one 
word of which did he understand, he exclaimed, " I never should 
have writtan a history of Ireland — I knew nothing about it." It 
ie remarkable how few, even among men of letters, are aware of 
the extraordinary intellectual activity of the ancient inhabitants 
of Scotland, Ireland and Wales, and of the great quantity of liter- 



264 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

ature composed by them. There are still in existence, in various 
European libraries, scores of thick volumes of tales and poems in 
the ancient Celtic language, some of which date as far back as 
the fifth century, and some as late as the fourteenth. From what 
I have been able to learn, much of this literature, which is prob- 
ably but a tithe of the original quantity, has great merit and ia 
worthy of being studied. (See art. Celtic Literature, in Ency. 
Britannica, also John Cameron's Essay on Celtic Literature.) It 
is from this treasure-house of legendary lore that Chaucer, Spen- 
ser, Shakespeare, and many others, drew the original materials of 
their imperishable works. 

Although a great deal of Ossian's poetry was undoubtedly com- 
posed by Macpherson himself, it is now conceded that he found a 
considerable part of it among the inhabitants of the Highlands 
of Scotland, and worked it all up into one continuous poem. 
Many volumes of such poetry have since been collected and pub- 
lished by the Highland and other societies ; and the whole 
Ossianio controversy, with the researches consequent upon it, 
has revealed to us what fine feelings and thoughts, what a vigor- 
ous intellectual life, existed among the ancient inhabitants of 
Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. When, for instance, these High- 
land " barbarians " used to meet for social amusement, every one 
present was accustomed to sing a song, recite a poem, extempo- 
rize a rhapsody, or recount the genealogy of some well-known 
chieftain. Rhyme was first used, not by the Greeks and Romans, 
who knew nothing of it, but by the Celts, who were the first 
authors of poems in rhyming and alliterative verse. "If I were 
asked," says Matthew Arnold, "where English poetry got these 
three things : its turn for style ; its turn for melancholy ; and its 
turn for natural magic, for catching and rendering the charms of 
nature, I would answer, with much doubt, that it got much of its 
turn for style from a Celtic source ; with less doubt, that it got 
much of its melancholy from a Celtic source ; and with no doubt 
at aU, that from a Celtic source it got nearly all its natural magio. 
Celtic poetry seems to make up in this way for being unable to 
master the world and give an adequate interpretation of it, by 
throwing all its forces into style ; by bending language at any 
rate to its will, and expressing the ideas it has with unsurpassable 



THE INFLUENCE OF SURROUNDINGS. 165 

intensity, elevation, and effect. The Celt's qnick feeling for whall 
is noble and distinguished gave his poetry style ; his sensibility 
and nervous exultation gave it a better gift still — the gift of ren- 
dering with wonderful facility the magical charm of nature : the 
forest solitude, the babbling stream, the internal life of nature 
her weird power and fairy charm." 



CHAPTER XXIX. 



WHERE DO MEN OF GENIUS COME FROM? 

A GERMAN writer, Herr Remenyi, says that most 
men of genius are born and bred in the country 
and in small country towns, * and that though 
the city absorbs them and affords them scope for most 
of their activity, they are nearly all products of the 
country. "Experience teaches us," says he, "that the 
great centres of population are marked by a lamentable 
sterility in the production of men of genius. Precisely 
as the city, with its one hundred thousand inhabitants, 
would have to starve if it did not receive its regular 
supplies of food from the country, so would it suffer 
intellectual starvation if its mental supplies were not 
in all essential points provided from the same source. 
Sometimes we find a miserable, obscure country town 
producing more men of original power than half a 
dozen large cities. Everything on which our century 
prides itself, everything that has made the age what it 
is, has come from the country. The statesmen and the 
soldiers, the artists and the inventors, the men of learn- 



WHERE DO MEN OF GENIUS COME FROM? 267 

ing and the men of enterprise, have all migrated from 
some obscure corner of the land to take possession of 
the cities, as their barbarous ancestors migrated from 
savage wildernesses to take possession of the seats of 
civilization. In Paris, Berlin and Vienna the natives are 
largely in the minority, and the immigrants fill all the 
streets and houses, and occupy all the public places. 
So it is with the leading men and the leading ideas ; 
they all come from the country. " 

Well, this seems a remarkable statement to make ; 
but I think that his assertion will hold good, not only 
in Europe, to which his article seems chiefly to refer, 
but in America. Make out a list of eminent Americans, 
and you will find that very few of them were born in 
the cities. How can this be explained.? Herr Remenyi 
has no explanation to offer ; he has no theory regarding 
it. "It has always been so," he says, "and will always 
be so; the city governs the fashions, but the village 
governs the nation." I think, however, it can be ex- 
plained by natural causes. 

In the first place, there are in every nation about six 
times as many people in the country and in country 
towns as there are in the large cities. This is a very 
striking fact, of which everybody is not aware. Many 
city dwellers imagine that the majority of the popula- 
tion of the nation live in the cities, like themselves ; for 
when they go to the country, they see so few people 
there, it seems hardly populated at all. In the next 
place, the tendency of talent in every country is toward 
the city, because, like the cabbages and potatoes, it 
finds the best market there. The young painter, poet, 
sculptor, orator or writer naturally gravitates toward 
those centres where his talent is most valued and 



268 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

commands the highest reward. If the city dwellers are 
themselves not so richly endowed with genius, they 
know best how to appreciate it, and how to pay the 
best price for it. 

In the next place, the inhabitants of cities are so ab- 
sorbed in multitudinous occupations, in ambitious pur- 
suits and extravagant pleasures ; so crazy in the pur- 
suit of wealth, and so cranky in the spending of it ; so 
full of newspaper excitements, and so fond of outside 
show and glitter ; so bent upon picking up a little of 
everything and much of nothing ; so cribbed, cramped, 
and confined within narrow streets and close rooms ; 
so devoid of inspiring scenery and noble prospects, that 
it is evident they cannot have the same chance for 
study, for large mental growth, as those who enjoy the 
slow, steady, quiet, leisurely life of the country. Their 
talents are frittered away in the excitements and scram- 
bles of the hour, and seldom does one of them think of 
becoming anything more than "a. clever fellow" or "a 
good fellow. " It is the old story of the slow but steady- 
going tortoise beating the swift but superficial hare. I 
know from my own experience that when I was in 
Paris I found nearly every position of any importance 
or responsibility filled, not by Parisians, who had too 
much amour and plaisir in their heads for business, but 
by young provincial Germans of good education, whose 
superior abilities commanded good pay and positions 
in spite of the prejudices of the French. Genius needs 
time, pains, patience, to develop. The richest fruits 
grow in the shade, and the finest talents mature in 
obscurity. 

Lastly, the statement is not universally true; for 
there are many men of genius, especially among the 



WHERE DO MEN OF GENIUS COME FROM? 269 

poets, who were born and bred in cities. Dante was 
bom and bred in Florence ; Lope de Vega in Madrid ; 
Milton and Spenser in London ; Voltaire and Moliere in 
Paris; and as to Homer, "Three cities claimed him 
dead. " The city seems indeed more favorable to poetic 
genius than to any other ; for it affords the best field 
for the observation of man in all ranks and conditions. 

It is worthy of note, however, that nearly all our 
great metropolitan preachers and editors are of provin- 
cial origin. Bellows, Beecher, Chapin, Talmage, John 
Hall, all came from the country; so did Greeley, 
Bennett, Raymond, Bryant, Watson Webb, Reid, Dana, 
and Swinton. But there is one editor, perhaps the 
greatest of modern times, who was born and bred in 
the great city in which his famous paper is published : 
I mean John Delane of the London Times. There is a 
fascination about this man's life — the quiet life of an 
accomplished gentleman, who wielded more power 
with his pen than the most war-loving prince ever 
wielded with his sword — which has always attracted 
me like a spell. No other life gives one such an idea 
of princely station among men : 

"The Times, "says its Paris correspondent, "is every 
day printed with new type. It employs sixteen short- 
hand writers in the two houses of parliament, and the 
telephone is employed for transmitting the 'copy' to 
the compositor. The editorial work begins about ii 
p. M. At that hour the outer sheet, containing the title, 
advertisements and some lengthy articles, is ready 
printed, and the editor has given his general orders. 
He is now conferring with his leader writers, who will 
shortly retire to their rooms. From 1 1 :^o o'clock the 
printers' boys will come and fetch the copy every ten 



270 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

minutes — fancy the strain of writing a leader under the 
perpetual interruption thus indicated — and it is at once 
set up by a special staff of compositors assigned to each 
article. The editor, meanwhile, with his assistant and 
sub-editors, proceeds to the arrangement and revision 
of the other matters forming the paper. 

"For thirty-two years Mr. John Delane reached his 
office at 10:30 p. M., and left at 4 a. m., just when the 
first printed copy issued from the press. About 3 a. m. 
the maker-up stated the amount of matter, and Mr. 
Delane, without looking at this mass of 100 columns, 
indicated from memory what had to be added to or cut 
out, paragraph by paragraph, and almost line for line. 
At 4 o'clock he went home, took a light supper, went to 
bed and arose about noon. He lunched about i p. m., 
dispatched his correspondence, received calls, went out 
about 4 o'clock for a ride on horseback, stopped at his 
club, dressed for dinner, dined nine times out of ten at 
the club in town, took a glance at what there was to 
see ; and, wherever he might be, took leave at a quarter 
past ten and went to his office. I go into these de- 
tails, " adds the correspondent, ' ' to show at what cost a 
man can aspire to the honor of editing the Times. " 

Such are the men that Carlyle refers to when he says 
that future historians will have far less to say of the 
kings than of the editors who lived and labored in the 
times they describe. 



CHAPTER XXX. 



IDEALS AND HOBBIES. 

{SUPPOSE that every youth who has any ideal at a\\ 
pictures to himself, as within the range of possibil- 
ity, some charming position in life, some pictur- 
esque and lovely situation, in which all his wishes are 
gratified and all his conceptions of happiness fulfilled. 
I know that I formed such ideals in my youth. I not 
only dreamed of attaining a brilliant position, with a 
commanding influence, but of acquiring a handsome 
estate, with the most charming surroundings, and with 
neighbors and acquaintances of the most agreeable 
character. It all comes back to me like a dream, now 
that I think of it. There is a handsome chateau, with 
tower and turrets, situated on a commanding hill, over- 
looking a noble river, in the midst of a fertile country, 
surrounded by all manner of trees and beds of flowers 
and clumps of shrubbery. There is a delightful brook 
winding and murmuring through the garden, on both 
sides of which are fruit-trees and rose-bushes filled with 
singing-birds and sweet-scented flowers. There is a 
young gentleman walking over the grounds with a 
handsome lady leaning on his arm ; they are enjoying 
the beautiful scene and conversing in the most cheerful 
manner. The gentleman stops to give directions in a 



*7* CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

kindly voice to the ruddy gardener and the jolly coach- 
man, whom they meet on the grounds. They enter the 
chateau, which is furnished in the most elegant man- 
ner; for there are not only pictures and statues and 
rare articles of vertu, with books and maps and globes ; 
but there is a smoking-room and a billiard-room, a li- 
brary and a picture-gallery ; and there are a number of 
pleasant people who call to pay their respects to the 
happy couple. Such was one of my ideals or day- 
dreams, and I have no doubt that many another, once 
a youth, will confess that something equally fond and 
foolish once crossed his mind. 

It is marvellous how readily the youthful mind fills up 
the future with charming prospects without ever dream- 
ing of such things as danger, difficulty, or disappoint- 
ment. The happy boy has experienced so few of the 
cares of life and so many of its pleasures, that he natu- 
rally looks forward to fewer and fewer cares and more 
and more pleasures. And it is not until he has got well 
on in life that the illusion is dispelled. It is well that it 
is so ; for it would not be good for him to know all the 
trials he has to encounter. It is good for the young man 
to form beautiful ideals, even if they never be realized ; 
for they keep his mind iik a fresh, cheerful, buoyant frame, 
and fill his life with the sunshine of hope. In fact, the 
struggle to realize the ideal is generally a source of 
greater happiness than the realization of it. 

"In the lives of all of us," says a writer in Lippin- 
cott's Magazine, "there comes that tragic period when 
we wake up from the golden dreams of youth to the 
dreary realities of maturity, when the contrast between 
the ideal and the real forces itself upon us with keenest 
irony, and the chill of disenchantment settles upon 



IDEALS AND HOBBIES. »73 

heart and brain. The tragedy of this period is inten- 
sified a thousandfold to those of us who have looked 
at life through the medium of books, and taken too se- 
riously the lessons they present. Because men and 
women are not what we had imagined, our faith in 
them goes down in black despair; because literature 
encouraged our delusions, we cast it aside as an un- 
worthy thing. This is the frame of mind in which cyni- 
cism is bom. This is the frame of mind in which the 
literature of despair had its origin, — R^n^, Werther, 
Obermann, and Childe Harold." 

I knew a young teacher who, entering an academy in 
a little town not far from the city of New York, fresh 
from college, was full of sanguine, enthusiastic ideas of 
the importance and usefulness of his calling ; full also 
of the newest ideas concerning the best ways of teach- 
ing, especially German ideas, such as the advocates of 
"the new education " have lately been promulgating. 
He entered on his duties with great ardor ; he loved his 
profession, and gradually mastered all its difficulties; 
and, by dint of hard work and faithful attention to duty, 
he gained such a reputation, such a degree of esteem, 
that he won not only honor and emolument, but a 
recognized position of influence as a teacher of ability 
and skill. Thus he went on for ten years — ten happy, 
glorious, useful years ; ten years in which he imagined 
himself one of the greatest men in the town, and 
dreamt of greater things to come; — when, unfortu- 
nately, an enemy appeared ; jealousy stirred a man who 
could not bear to see him so successful ; aiid, by secret 
whispers and open insinuations, this man gradually 
undermined his reputation, destroyed his influence, and 
robbed him of his cheerfulness ! This person was one 



^74 CULTtfRE BY SELF-HELP. 

of the patrons of the institution — a man in every way 
his inferior — who came into the school, listened to his 
lessons, gave a false report of them, and turned every 
thing topsy-turvy. A clique was formed, who spread 
damaging reports concerning the young man, and op- 
erated in such a way as to lead to his resignation, the 
death of his usefulness, and the ruin of his ideal ! He 
still teaches, successfully enough, in a different sphere ; 
but he tells me himself that those ten years, those ideal 
years, those happy years, those useful years, he always 
looks back to as the brightest period of his life, in which 
the world looked beautiful and promising, and every- 
thing was fairer than it has ever been since. 

We never, indeed, cease forming ideals ; for, as our 
first rosy and romantic ideals pass away, they are re- 
placed by new and more reasonable or more probable 
ones, according to our age, culture, and experience. 
After the dream of boyhood comes that of manhood ; 
and after that of manhood comes that of middle age : 
for the man of thirty begins to think of different things 
from the boy of eighteen, and the man of fifty of still 
different things. The youth who now dreams of glitter- 
ing position and troops of friends will, ten or fifteen 
years hence, dream, perhaps, of a quiet home, away 
from the bustle of business, beside some lovely river, 
among birds and bees and flowers. 

The city clerk, nailed to his desk ten hours a day in a 
dingy, gas-lit room, dreams of a fine farm away out in 
Virginia, with a free foot on the green grass and in the 
open fields ; while the hard-worked farmer, on the other 
hand, who has spent his life in the open air and among 
green fields, dreams of the city, its crowds of fashion- 
able and well-dressed people ; its dramatic and musical 



IDEALS AND HOBBIBS. i75 

entertainments; its shows and museums and picture- 
galleries; its pomp, parade, and pageantry. And so, 
throughout the various situations of life, you will find 
every one dreaming of something different from what he 
possesses. Douglas Jerrold, wit, poet, dramatist, used 
to dream of writing a great prose work on natural phi- 
losophy ; and Sir Isaac Newton, the greatest of scientific 
philosophers, used to dream of writing an epic poem. 

I know a successful physician who still dreams of a 
career in legal and political life, whose favorite subject 
of conversation is forensic oratory and legislative 
triumphs. I know a hard-worked city editor whose 
dream is of a quiet home in a country parsonage, close 
to a neat, ivy-covered church, in which he would dis- 
course to his parishioners of heaven, the loveliness of 
virtue, and the superiority of country life to that of the 
city. I know a young clergyman who, though comfort- 
ably situated as pastor of a respectable congregation, 
dreams day and night of becoming professor in a well- 
endowed college, where he can pursue his favorite 
studies to his heart's content, and display to the world 
his learning and ability as an author. I know half a 
dozen collegians whose darling dream is that of going 
to Europe and visiting the scenes and shrines made 
famous by their association with scientists, poets, 
painters, novelists, artists, men whose works they have 
studied or whose lives they have read. 

Every young man lives, for instance, with an ideal 
wife, a sort of shadow beauty, who is the perfection of 
womanhood, all that is graceful, noble, innocent, and 
beautiful : 

Amazing brightness, pnrity, and truth, 
Eternal joy, and everlasting love. 



27^ CtiLTtrfifi BY StLf-ntLP. 

And if he be true to his ideal, he finally marries the 
woman who comes nearest to it. But when he finds 
that women are not exactly the angels he imagined 
them to be, and that married life is not exactly the para- 
dise he supposed it to be, he turns to something else ; 
he forms a new ideal ; he will devote his energies to the 
acquisition of wealth, and plan and build such wondrous 
structures as were never seen before; or he will be- 
come a soldier, and win fame and fortune in the front 
rank of war; or an orator and statesman, and win a 
place in the annals of his country ; or an artist, and fill 
the world with pictures of beauty ; or a physician, and 
heal and console suffering humanity ; or a clergyman, 
and lead mankind "from nature up to nature's God." 
Thus we go on forming ideals to the end of the chapter. 
To the man who has acquired wealth, knowledge, or 
power, there is but one way of making his acquisition 
a source of happiness to himself and of profit to others : 
he must follow out his ideal, and strive to realize in 
manhood what he conceived or dreamt of in boyhood. 
Youth is the season of noble dreams, the spring and 
seed-time of life ; manhood and mature years the season 
of fruition, the summer and autumn of life, in which the 
most worthy conceptions of spring are often brought to 
perfection. Every successful man, every man who has 
got beyond the necessity of working for a living, should 
have a hobby, a pet recreative employment, whereby 
he attempts to realize some cherished dream, some 
noble conception of his youth. For he who retires from 
business with the view of securing happiness in com- 
plete inactivity, makes a very grave mistake. The brain 
that planned and calculated and wrought until it 
amassed a fortune can find no happiness in enforced 



IDEALS AND HOBBIES. iff 

idleness. Its very life depends on activity; and if it 
have nothing to do, it will turn its energies into dark, 
discontented, and melancholy channels, which not un- 
frequently lead to insanity and suicide. 

Some years ago there came to New York City, from a 
busy town on the Hudson River, an elderly gentleman 
of robust appearance, who, after registering his name 
and residence at an hotel, went to his room and poisoned 
himself He left a letter stating that sleeplessness was 
the cause of his trouble, and that without sleep he could 
endure life no longer. It was found that he was a mil- 
lionaire, a successful manufacturer, who had given up 
his business to his son, and had retired to enjoy the re- 
mainder of his days in peace and quietness. He had 
all that heart could desire ; was still sound in wind and 
limb ; and yet so miserable that he thought nothing but 
death could relieve him. This man became the prey of 
the demon of idleness ; he perished for want of some- 
thing to do. How can a man sleep who has done 
nothing to make him need sleep ? 

I have heard of a workman who fell fast asleep inside 
of a huge iron boiler on which a score of men were 
hammering with all their might. The tired workman, 
even with such surroundings, can sleep more easily 
than he who, with nothing to do, lies down 

In the perfumed chambers of the great, 

Under the canopies of costly state, 

And lulled with sound of sweetest melody. 

Nature is bound to have her way ; where there is g^reat 
exertion sleep follows, in spite of every impediment, 
and where there is no exertion sleep is absent, in spite 
of every allurement. 
Some years ago, there lived in a certain town in Ger- 



2 78 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

many a wealthy young nobleman, who, after his college 
course, travelled far and wide ; saw, heard, and enjoyed 
all that wealth could procure ; and then returned to his 
native place to drag out an indolent existence. He soon 
became tired of life, and wished to get rid of it. One 
day, some months after his return, he declared to his 
friend, who was a manufacturer, that he could endure 
life no longer, and was going to end it that very night. 
His friend, who was a man of sense and discretion, re- 
quested him, as a last favor, to come and see his men 
at work before committing the fatal act. It was the 
busy season, and the workmen were employed till late at 
night. The young nobleman came ; and his friend had 
ordered things so, that, immediately on his entrance, cer- 
tain workmen seized him, clapped a blouse on him, and 
compelled him to work like a Trojan. The nobleman, 
finding remonstrance vain, did as he was bidden ; and 
after toiling until he was tired and hungry, sat down with 
the others to a lunch of black bread, sausages, and beer. 
This plain food he ate with an appetite and a relish 
such as he had never known before, and he saw those 
around him enjoying it in a similar manner. One work- 
man came up to him and said, "Friend, you see before 
you the father of five children. I lost three of them at 
one fell swoop. I was almost crazy ; I wished to follow 
them. But I had to work for the rest, who are dearer 
to me than life itself; and now, working for them has 
made life sweet to me." The nobleman heard, saw, 
and felt. He remembered that he had large estates and 
many tenants ; these tenants were his fellow-men, and 
he knew that he could do them much good ; so he de- 
termined to devote his energies to improving his estates 
and bettering the condition of his tenantry; and he 



IDEALS AND HOBBIES. 2 79 

lived to enjoy happiness and to thank his friend for the 
ruse by which he had saved him from an ignominious 
death. 

No man is so unfit for retirement and ease as he 
whose Hfe has been unusually active and daring. When 
Lord Clive, the hero of a hundred battles, the founder of 
England's Indian Empire, returned to his native country 
the possessor of enormous wealth, he tried to live at 
ease in retirement; but this way of living became in- 
supportable to him, and, falling into fits of melancholy, 
he put an end to his life with his own hand. It was re- 
marked that Clive was usually dull in conversation, un- 
til some great scheme was broached ; then he would 
suddenly brighten up, and take great interest in the con- 
versation. He was formed to plan and execute great 
schemes, and not to live in idleness. He made a fatal 
mistake in going into a state of life where there was noth- 
ing but trifles to occupy his attention. The worst thing 
that can happen to a man is to have no more worlds to 
conquer. When there are no more material worlds, a 
spiritual, artistic, or literary world should take its place. 

Absence of occupation is not rest ; 

A mind quite vacant is a mind distressed. 

There is another Indian hero, a man of wonderful 
power and resource, whose career, more marvellous 
than that of Clive, ended in a useful and consequently 
happy retirement. I refer to Warren Hastings, who real- 
ized in the autumn of life the dream of his youth, and 
of whose history Macaulay gives such a fascinating ac- 
count. Hastings came of a once powerful and wealthy 
family, the Hastings of Daylesford; but the civil war 
and reckless extravagance had ruined the family; 
their estates had passed to strangers, and Warren him- 



2^0 CtJLTtJRE BY SELF-HELP. 

self, the last of his race, was left a friendless and penni- 
less orphan. "The daily sight of the lands which his 
ancestors had possessed," says Macaulay, "and which 
had passed into the hands of strangers, filled his young 
brain with fancies and projects. He loved to hear 
stories of the wealth and greatness of his progenitors — 
of their splendid housekeeping, their loyalty, and their 
valor. On one bright summer day, the boy, then just 
seven years of age, lay on the bank of the rivulet which 
flows through the old domain of his house to join the 
Isis. There, as three-score and ten years later he told 
the tale, rose in his mind a scheme which, through all 
the turns of his eventful career, he never abandoned. 
He would recover the estates which belonged to his 
fathers. He would be Hastings of Daylesford. This 
purpose, formed in infancy and poverty, grew stronger 
as his intellect expanded and as his fortune rose. He 
pursued his plan with that calm but indomitable force 
of will which was the most striking peculiarity of his 
character. When, under a tropical sun, he ruled fifty 
millions of Asiatics, his hopes, amid all the cares of war, 
finance, and legislation, still pointed to Daylesford ; and 
when his long public life, so singularly checkered with 
good and evil, with glory and obloquy, had at length 
closed forever, it was to Daylesford he retired to die." 
Hastings, after recovering his ancestral estates, devoted 
himself to their improvement, lived the life of an active 
country gentleman, amused himself with art, literature, 
and agriculture, and enjoyed all the blessings of a green 
old age. Had it not been for the j ealousy and consequent 
treachery of Pitt, he would perhaps have entered the 
House of Lords and the Ministry, and become as famous 
in European politics as he had been in those of India. 



IDEALS AND HOBBIES. 28 1 

You will find that most men of eminence have ridden 
some hobby by way of relaxation. Sir Cornewall 
Lewis was in the habit of turning to some pet theory in 
life, government, or education, which he endeavored to 
establish in an essay or address. On one occasion he 
asked a certain tradesman for his vote, and on being re- 
fused, he turned to the astonished elector and inquired 
if he "knew of any remarkable case of longevity in the 
neighborhood." He was at that time endeavoring to 
prove one of his pet theories on this subject. Professor 
Wilson used to go off on some wild, wandering highland 
tour, in which he spoke to nearly everybody he met, 
and returned refreshed and strengthened for the serious 
work of life. Voltaire, who used to say that "a sure 
means of not yielding to the desire to kill one's self is 
to have always something to do," devoted himself with 
immense zeal and success to farming and business 
speculations. Macaulay took to novel-reading and 
after-dinner talking ; Buckle to chess-playing and club 
conversations ; Gladstone to wood-chopping and the 
study of the Greek classics ; and Cavour to agriculture 
and reviewing books on government and political 
economy. 

Many a man, by giving free play to his inclination in 
some well-chosen hobby, has discovered where his tal- 
ent lay, and, dropping the mere bread-winning occupa- 
tion, found pleasure and profit in that which he loved 
for its own sake. John Hill Burton was a lawyer, 
whose hobby was writing essays for the magazines, 
and he presently found he could make more money by 
following his hobby than his profession. When he first 
received a considerable sum of money for a work 
which, in the composing, had given him nothing but 



202 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

pleasure, he felt as much surprise and joy as if it were 

an unexpected legacy. Such has been the experience 
of many a man who attained eminence in an employ- 
ment which he first pursued as a hobby. Geology, in 
which Hugh Miller made such a mark, was his hobby. 
Astronomy, in which Herschel so greatly distinguished 
himself, was his hobby. Poetry, in which Halleck 
earned never-dying fame, was his hobby. And so with 
many others, 

I should like, in conclusion, to warn my young read- 
ers against expensive hobbies. Beware of hobbies that 
take you away from home, that cost much money, and 
that cause you to neglect your business. Such hobbies, 
instead of being recreative and refreshing, are wasteful 
and dangerous. Everything that can be carried on at 
home or near home — music, drawing, painting, reading, 
writing, chess, gardening; the study of any art or 
science ; the collection of coins, curiosities, plants, 
minerals — all these may be profitably pursued as hob- 
bies. But beware of those hobbies which consist in 
games of chance, in betting on the exploits of men or 
horses, and such dangerous things. I have a horror, 
too, of those cruel hobbies that consist in catching and 
impaling insects for ornamental purposes, or in setting 
up poor innocent doves to be shot at. This last is 
simply barbarous. Poor, poor dumb creatures ! if they 
could only speak, what a tale they would tell ! They, 
doubtless, look upon the remorseless wretches that tor- 
ture and shoot them as we look upon the monsters that 
crucified Christ.* 



* I am indebted to an article in the New York Tribune for one 
or two points in this ohapter. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 



HOW A WORK OF GENIUS ORIGINATES. 

MOST men find a fascination in the lives and works 
of men of genius. Everything pertaining to 
them, their homes, their habits, their amuse- 
ments, is read with avidity ; and when any trait specially 
characteristic, any clew to the manner in which they 
work their wonders, is reported, a feeling of satisfaction, 
of pleased surprise, is produced, and the mind is relieved 
from that overstrained feeling of deference with which 
they are generally regarded. What, for instance, is 
more interesting than the fact that Dickens wrote his 
first work, the Pickwick Papers, in response to the re- 
quest of a publisher who had some comic pictures on 
hand, which he wished to utilize? or that he drew his 
own father and mother in Mr. and Mrs. Micawber, and 
himself in David Copperfield ? 

We delight to hear anything that brings us nearer to 
a poet or a painter, a statesman or an orator, just as we 
delight to get a front seat in the theatre or a good view- 
ing-place in the procession. The mass of the common 
people will go miles and miles to see a king, a queen, 
or a president. These are to them the embodiment of 
greatness and power, and to see them is the event of 



384 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

their lives. The man of intelligence transfers this feel- 
ing to the real kings and queens of society, those who 
mould the minds, purify the hearts, and delight the souls 
of mankind. 

With this word genius there has ever been associated 
something approaching the supernatural, the divine. 
The traditions of every country have thrown a mysteri- 
ous halo around it, and men have regarded those pos- 
sessing it as persons set apart, entirely different from 
other people, and living in a higher and purer atmos- 
phere than the rest of mankind. Perhaps nothing can 
illustrate this feeling better than the story of the French- 
man who, in an ecstasy of admiration for Sir Isaac 
Newton, inquired "if he ate and drank like other men ! " 
And I have no doubt he was pleased on learning that 
he not only ate and drank like other men, but loved the 
society of little children and of animals, and made the 
most comical mistakes in the affairs of every-day life. 
' ' Men who are above others by their talents, " says Vol- 
taire, "always come near them by their weaknesses; 
for why should talents put us above humanity ? " 

A recent critic, in commenting on Mr. Cross's "Life 
of George Eliot," declares that the reader of this work 
will search in vain for any indication of the secret of 
her inspiration ; that nowhere will he find a hint of the 
manner in which she came to form her masterly crea- 
tions, or whence she derived her marvellous power of 
dramatic presentation. This may, in this particular in- 
stance, be true, though I doubt it ; for everything de- 
pends upon the eye that examines the work. But if it 
is, it simply amounts to an isolated fact; for I think 
that, from the general mass of biographic details, we 
may clearly see how a man of genius works his won- 



HOW A WORK OF GENIUS ORIGINATES. 285 

ders ; how the poet, painter, or sculptor first conceives 
his work ; how he comes to brood upon it, and form 
and fashion it ; how he recasts and reforms it, and how 
he finally carries it on to completion. Indeed, I shall, 
before I am done, give an example from the life of 
George Eliot herself which will serve this purpose pretty 
effectually. I shall show that a work of genius, like 
many other apparently miraculous things, originates in 
the most simple, easy, and natural manner ; that it is, 
in fact, nothing more than putting into visible or audi- 
ble shape conceptions, observations, passions, and 
feelings which most of us experience, with which most 
of us are familiar, but which few take the trouble to 
observe, inwardly to digest, and to reproduce in an ar- 
tistic form. "Genius," says Lessing, "is nature in its 
highest expression ; but genius is always simple. " 

We have all of us some ideal of life, some shadowy 
conception of perfect living; we are all subject to 
moods, to impressions, and to moments of strong emo- 
tion and active thinking; we have our periods of 
elation and of depression, of sad reflection and of joy- 
ous feeling; our dreams and visions and fancies, our 
conceptions of beauty and happiness — most of us have 
from time to time flashes of light illuminating some 
mystery of life or indicating how the life of man may 
be improved, how glorious things may be done, or how 
some mystery of life may be solved — 

High instincts, before which onr mortal natnre 
Does tremble like a guilty thing surprised. 

Now it is he who takes advantage of these instincts, 
moods, impressions, ideals, and flashes of light, who 
works fervently while under their influence, who pro- 
duces a work of genius ; it is he who, by a sort of in- 



286 



CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 



stinct, goes to work to fashion or form in some way his 
heavenly vision, his conception of beauty or greatness, 
who takes an intense pleasure in it, without any other 
thought than the hope of communicating pleasure or 
profit to others by his work, who possesses genius. "Men 
are possessed of great and divine ideas and sentiments, " 
says Dr. Dewey, "and to paint them, sculpture them, 
build them in architecture, sing them in music, utter 
them in eloquent speech, write them in books, in essays, 
sermons, poems, dramas, fictions, philosophies, histories 
— this is an irresistible impulse of human nature." 

A poet or a painter, for instance, reads a history or a 
romance, hears a striking story from some passing ac- 
quaintance, or undergoes some remarkable experience 
himself; he is moved by it ; it works and ferments in 
his mind ; he reviews the whole scene as it actually oc- 
curred, lighted up by the sun of his imagination ; he is 
impelled, like any one who sees or hears a good thing, 
to communicate it, to tell it, to show it ; he must speak, 
or write, or paint, or sing about it; an overmastering 
passion takes possession of him ; he burns to let others 
see the heavenly vision he has seen himself; he must 
give it expression in some way ; so he sits down and 
embalms it in verse or in music, draws it on paper, 
vivifies it on canvas, models it in clay, or describes it 
in clear, animating prose. 

Cowper reads the news of the sinking of an English 
man-of-war with eight hundred men, "fast by their 
native shore ; " and he vents his feelings in those splen- 
did lines, "On the loss of the Royal George." Oliver 
Wendell Holmes hears that because of the unsoundness 
of some of the timbers of the old battle-ship Constitu- 
tion, the Government is going to break her up and sell 



HOW A WORK OF GENIUS ORIGINATES. 287 

her for old timber ; he is filled with indignation at the 
thought ; and he relieves his mind in that stirring and 
brilliant lyric, "Old Ironsides." Robert Burns wanders 
through the haunts of the heroic Bruce, gazes on the 
field of the battle of Bannockburn ; the sight of which 
recalls deeds that fire him with poetic and patriotic 
ardor, and he composes without pen or paper those im- 
mortal lines which stir the heart like a trumpet, "Scots 
wha hae wi' Wallace bled." On another occasion some- 
body tells him a humorous story about a jolly farmer 
and his belated homeward ride; the story strikes his 
fancy, and he composes, in a merry mood, that master- 
piece of humorous narrative poetry, "Tarn o' Shanter." 
Wilkie observes before a country inn a group of village 
statesmen discussing the situation ; he is struck by the 
picturesqueness of the scene, and his artistic eye per- 
ceives at once the materials for a picture ; so, sketching 
the group on the spot, he takes it home with him and 
fins it out at his leisure. This is the origin of his fam- 
ous picture, "The Politicians." Rogers sees two boys 
clambering in great glee on the back of a quiet, sensible 
horse ; the scene strikes him as worthy of imitation, and 
he models the beautiful and pleasing group, "Our 
Boys. " John Gibson, seeing in Rome a girl seizing a 
child, and, with a sudden wring of the figure over her 
shoulder, giving it a kiss, finds a model for his "Nymph 
arid Cupid;" and on perceiving a woman skilfully 
helping her child with foot and hand up to her lap, ho 
forms his "Bacchante and Faun." 

Tom Hood perceives a crowd collected on the banks 
of the Thames, and, coming up, finds that they are 
gazing at the lifeless body of a beautiful girl, just drawn 
up out of the water and laid out on the shore. He is 



200 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

moved to tears by the mournful spectacle, and, divining 
the history of the unfortunate girl, he goes home, think- 
ing of her sad fate, and unburdens his heart in that most 
touching poem, "The Bridge of Sighs." At another 
time he happens to get a glimpse of the miserable lodg- 
ing of a poor London seamstress, with its wretched oc- 
cupant plying her needle therein, and he paints the life 
of the sewing- woman in "The Song of the Shirt." Mr. 
Whittier reads a few lines in a newspaper describing 
the heroic conduct of an old woman in a Maryland 
town, where she held the "Stars and Stripes" flying 
while the rebels came marching in ; and he immortal- 
izes her in "Barbara Frietchie." . 

Incidents like these, which most people peruse with 
but little attention, or with but a momentary burst of 
feeling, appeal so strongly to the heart and mind of 
the poet that he cannot rest until he has turned them 
into a work of art. He is not satisfied until he repro- 
duces the incident in some artistic shape: it is a jewel 
he thinks worth preserving, and his heart burns with- 
in him until he has made an appropriate setting for 
it. The impulse is the same with poet and painter ; for 
**painting is but silent poetry, and poetry eloquent paint- 
ing." Nearly all Goethe's personal experiences were 
turned in this way into prose or poetry ; and nearly all 
Wilkie's pictures are representations of scenes in his own 
personal experience. It is the delight of the poet, the 
painter, and the novelist to delineate their experiences, 
their loves and hates, their joys and sorrows, their suc- 
cesses and defeats, each in his own peculiar way ; it is 
their highest pleasure to paint the life of man for the 
edification or the entertainment of their fellow-men. 

Some people imagine they must dwell in historic lo- 



HOW A WORK OF GENIUS ORIGINATES. 289 

calities, amid the memorials of famous men and great 
events, or surrounded by beautiful scenery, to produce 
anything worthy of the name of art. Never was a 
greater mistake. All places are historic to the eye of 
genius. Every spot of earth on the world's wide surface 
has probably witnessed some heroic or noble action. 
The very stones that are dug out of a quarry would, if 
they could speak, tell tales more wonderful than any 
that have ever been told. "The author of 'The Scarlet 
Letter,'" says Mr. Scudder, "did not need to draw his 
breath of inspiration from any mediaeval chronicle, or 
under the shadow of Strasbourg Cathedral. An old 
newspaper in the Salem Custom-house was enough for 
him." 

Everything seems to speak to the eye of genius; 
everything has a history and a tale to tell ; everything 
is an actor, in some way, in the mystic drama of life. 
"I have often said to myself, on looking at a flower," 
says Mr. Tyndall, "its message is plain ; but the mys- 
tery of its existence is not. Can it be that there is no 
being in existence who knows more about this flower 
than myself, than such a poor, ignorant creature as I 
am?" "When I enter a great city by night," says 
Charles Dickens, "I imagine that every one of those 
darkly-clustered houses incloses its own secret ; that 
every room in every one of them incloses its own 
secret, and that every beating heart, in the hundreds of 
thousands of hearts there, is, in some of its imaginings, 
a secret to the heart nearest it. " 

The man of genius is rapid in forming conclusions ; 
he instantly interprets the meaning of a look, a word, a 
glance ; and, with mind and eye constantly open, he 
often seizes at once the significance of some apparently 



290 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

trifling incident which unfolds a whole history. By a 
sort of divination he plucks out the heart of your mys- 
tery before you are aware. From the merest indications 
of a truth, he jumps at conclusions, and, like a seer, 
flashes upon a great discovery by a sudden inspiration. 
Goethe, while strolling through a cemetery in Venice, 
came across a skull which lay in his way, and taking it 
up, he instantly thought, Is not this the complement, 
the completion of the spinal column ? or, in other words, 
Is not this bony covering of the head an extension and 
expansion of the bony covering of the spine? And he. 
was right ; though the anatomists, the dull dissecters of 
dead bodies, long ridiculed him for his extravagant idea. 
Perhaps the grandest discovery ever made was hit 
upon in this way ; for it was by a sort of inspired guess, 
a pure flight of the imagination, that Newton first con- 
ceived the idea that the heavenly bodies were held in 
their places by the law of gravitation. He guessed at 
it long before he was able to prove it. The falling of 
the apple led him merely into a train of thought ; and 
while he 

Betook himself to linking 
Fancy unto fancy, wondering, fearing, doubting, 
Dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before^ 

the grand truth flashed upon his mind, and the great 
mystery of the material universe was solved. It was 
not till twenty years afterward that he was able to 
demonstrate the truth of his wonderful conception. 
* ' No poet, except Dante and Shakespeare, " says Buckle, 
"ever had an imagination more soaring and more auda- 
cious than that possessed by Sir Isaac Newton. " 

Many other discoveries have been made in the same 
way. Franklin, while meditating on the causes of na- 



HOW A WORK OF GENIUS ORIGINATES. 29 1 

tural phenomena, guessed at the cause of thunder and 
lightning long before he drew electricity from the skies ; 
Copernicus, while studying the heavenly bodies, guessed 
at the laws governing the solar system long before he 
was able to prove them ; Kepler's three great astronom- 
ical laws were simply three happy guesses, which he 
afterward proved to be truths ; and Harvey guessed at 
the circulation of the blood years before he was able to 
demonstrate it. It was, doubtless, in this way that 
Shakespeare, too, in so many different passages, touched 
upon discoveries made after his time ; for how, other- 
wise, came he to know, before Harvey announced it, 

that 

The blood of man, 
. . . Bwift as quicksilver . . . courses through 
The natural gates and alleys of the body ? 

It was assuredly by seeing things through the eye of 
the imagination, which is the grandest faculty of the 
mind, that he perceived this great truth.* 

* It has struck me that Harvey may possibly have taken a hint 
from Shakespeare. He first expounded his views in a course of 
lectures before the College of Physicians in 1616, the very year of 
Shakespeare's death, though it was not till twelve years afterward 
that he gave them to the world at large. " Hamlet " was published 
in 1604. This is another instance of the fact, that great truths 
are often in the air about the time of their announcement ; or, 
might not Shakespeare have known Harvey, and heard him talk 
of his theory ? Ah I there we enter into that unsatisfactory 
though fascinating field of conjecture which surrounds our great- 
est, most loved, and yet least known poet, Shakespeare. I have 
often thought that some man of genius may, some day, supply 
from imagination that life of Shakespeare which is now bo sadly 
wanting. 



CHAPTER XXXIt 



THE MATERIAL ON WHICH GENIUS WORKS. 

tf I ^HE reason why so few good books are written," 
1 says Walter Bagehot, in his excellent essay on 
Shakespeare, "is that so few of the writing 
people know anything. In general, an author lives in 
a room, reads books, cultivates science, becomes ac- 
quainted with the style and sentiment of the best au- 
thors ; but he ts out of the way of employing his own 
eyes and ears. He has nothing to hear and nothing 
to see. His life is a vacuum. The mental habits of 
Robert Southey, which have been so extensively praised 
in the public journals, is the type of literary existence ; 
just as the praise bestowed on it shows the admiration 
excited by it among literary people. He wrote poetry 
(as if anybody could) before breakfast ; he read during 
breakfast. He wrote history until dinner ; he corrected 
proof-sheets between dinner and tea ; he wrote an essay 
for the Quarterly afterward ; and after supper, by way 
of relaxation, composed 'The Doctor,' a lengthy and 
elaborate jest. Now what can any one think of such 
a life — except how clearly it shows that the habits best 
fitted for communicating information, formed with the 



THE MATERIAL ON WHICH GENIUS WORKS. 293 

best care and daily regulated by the best motives, are 
exactly the habits which are likely to afford a man the 
least information to communicate." No wonder that 
Southey's way of living ended in softening of the brain ; 
and no wonder that nine-tenths of his writings are al- 
ready softened into oblivion. 

To the true artist, all books except the book of the 
world are but helps to understand this one great book. 
All book-knowledge simply serves to clarify and en- 
lighten his experience-knowledge. "Not only is man 
ever interesting to me," says Goethe, "but, properly 
speaking, he is the only creature that is interesting." 
The man of science is constantly noticing, examining, 
and drawing conclusions from what he sees around 
him. The poet and the novelist should do the same 
thing. Not only in the affairs of society, in the per- 
sonages of history, of romance, of the newspapers, but 
in the shifting scenes of the street and the park, in the 
church, the theatre, the ferry-boat, the car — everywhere 
the poet may perceive subjects for his active, shaping 
brain ; everywhere the drama of life is teeming with 
suggestions to him. By talking with men, and observ- 
ing their habits, he will find plenty to think about. 
Far more poems than he can write, far more pictures 
than he can paint, will be suggested to him. 

Walter Scott said he had found " among his poor un- 
educated neighbors higher sentiments than he had met 
with anywhere outside of the pages of the Bible ;" and 
Buckle, the historian, who usually travelled in second- 
class railway carriages, said: "I always talk with the 
travellers, and often find very intelligent people in these 
carriages. The first-class travellers are so dull ; as soon 
as you broach a subject they are frightened." Locke 



294 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

used to say that he had acquired his large stock of 
knowledge by making a habit of talking to those whom, 
he met on those subjects they knew best. 

Remember what Cowper has made of common things. 
The cricket, the tea-kettle, the sofa, the arm-chair, the 
postman, were all to him full of poetic suggestion. The 
postman comes to the door, and instantly he thinks of 
the joys, sorrows, cares, and griefs this man carries 
about with him, and all this he expresses in poetic form! 
Whatever suggests thought is worthy of attention. 

The characters of Charlotte Bronte and George Eliot 
were nearly all people whom they knew personally. 
Charles Dickens drew his scenes and characters from 
the London streets, the police courts, the public-houses, 
and the dwellings of the poor; while Bulwer Lytton 
drew his from the clubs and the resorts of the nobility 
and gentry. Charles Reade seems to have found his 
inspiration, as well as most of his incidents and char- 
acters, in the daily newspapers. He used to clip out of 
them all the homicides, suicides, divorces, elopements, 
love matches, defalcations, generous donations, and 
noble or heroic deeds he found therein, and had them 
carefully arranged, pasted in blank-books, and regularly 
indexed for future use, so that he could turn to these 
books for any kind of incident he wanted. This was 
the treasure-house from which he drew his lifelike 
tales ; the mine in which he found so many veins of 
pure gold. He took no fewer than six American news- 
papers, besides a large number of English papers, and 
he culled something valuable from each of them. But 
Charles Reade was not without imagination; for all 
these newspaper stories and incidents were but the 
bricks of his house, the rough material, out of which 



THE MATERIAL ON WHICH GENIUS WORKS. J^J 

he constructed, by the power of imagmation, many a 
charming tale of fascinating romance. 

As the naturalist can reconstruct an extinct animal 
from a single tooth ; as the geologist can, from faded 
foot-marks upon the disinterred rocks, revivify and de- 
scribe a whole race of extinct animals ; so can the poet 
or novelist construct, from a single incident, a whole 
epic or romance. Bulwer Lytton's masterpiece in tra- 
gedy, "Richelieu," had its origin in a single episode of 
love and adventure which he found in a French memoir 
of the last century. I could not help thinking of this, 
on reading lately that Monsieur Maspero had found, 
among the ancient bodies he was exhuming in Egypt, 
one which, from all indications, was that of a young 
man of rank who had been buried alive. What a blaze 
this would have excited in the imagination of Bulwer 
Lytton or Walter Scott ! 

The story of Shylock and his pound of flesh is con- 
tained in a dozen lines; and yet, what a magnificent 
tragedy, with a cloud of characters and events, Shake- 
speare built up from it ! So with several others of his 
plays : a few hints were sufficient to enable him to con- 
struct a whole drama. Sometimes, like Charles Reade, 
he found the materials in abundant masses, and then, 
by a happy transformation of words, by fusing the ma- 
terials into a more beautiful form, he turned plain prose 
into the highest poetry. Read "Julius Caesar," and 
then turn to the source whence the incidents are de- 
rived. North's "Plutarch," and you will find that all the 
events, many of the thoughts, and not unfrequently the 
very words, are taken from that famous biographer. 
And yet what a marvellously beautiful transformation 
he made of the whole story ! How much more real 



2g6 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

Brutus and Portia are to us now, than they would be 
had the poet never revived them ! I am always dis- 
appointed at the faintness of the characters in his- 
tory after reading Shakespeare's presentation of them. 
While Plutarch recounts the lives of the old Roman 
heroes as men and women who lived long, long ago, 
since ages "dead and turned to clay," Shakespeare 
makes them breathe again, speak and move before our 
eyes, "in their habit as they lived," and invests them 
with as much life and reality as any person we have 
ever known. Indeed, all the characters of this great 
dramatist live and speak to us continually. Time seems 
only to make them newer, fresher, and more interest- 
ing than ever. He found certain men and women in 
the records of history whose lives and deeds he thought 
worthy of dramatic presentation, and by the magical 
power of genius, he revived them, and made them live 
forever as perpetual examples for the instruction and 
edification of mankind.* 

* For the benefit of those young people ■vrho would like to get 
all the good they can, without any of the evil, from Shakespeare's 
plays, I should like to recommend the Rev. H. N. Hudson's 
" School Shakespeare," which contains nearly all of each of the 
best plays, with excellent elucidations. I have often thought, 
Would that I had had such an edition in my youth ! What an 
unmixed pleasure it would have been ! Old Dr. Ryland once 
said to young John Jay: "In my youth my imagination was cor- 
rupted by evil images, and I shall never get them out of my 
head till I am under the sod I " There is a whole life-history in 
that single sentence. It is only fair, however, to state that 
Shakespeare is purity itself compared with most of the other 
dramatists of his time. 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 



THE ORIGINALITY OF GENIUS. 

MANY people imagine that poets, painters, orators, 
and dramatists are original and peculiar, not 
only in what they do and say, but in their man- 
ner, look, dress, carriage, and general behavior. Well, 
some of them are all this, and much more ; not only 
long hair, frilled shirts, and knee-breeches are still found 
among the younger members of this class, but eccen- 
tric habits, extravagant pranks, and cranky notions are 
sometimes met with. Most men of true genius, how- 
ever, are noted for simplicity of manner, plainness of 
speech, frankness of dealing, and an utter absence of 
affectation of any kind. They have, like every man of 
character, an individuality of their own ; but they never 
put on one that does not belong to them. Simplicity is 
the highest outcome of genius and culture. 

I know that Dr. Johnson said of Burke: "You could 
not stand with him under an archway while a shower 
of rain was passing, without discovering that he was 
an extraordinary man ; " but this had reference more to 
his strong character and fresh thought than to any sin- 
gularity of manner or speech. That is where men of 



298 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

genius differ from other men : their talk has something 
of newness or freshness about it, something of practical 
value, that is lacking in the talk of ordinary men. Five 
minutes' talk with a man of this character will some- 
times leave a deeper impression and give you more to 
think about than a life-time with an ordinary man. 

Some years ago I was introduced into a club of gen- 
tlemen in New York city, composed mostly of men of 
note in their profession — editors, lawyers, teachers, 
writers, physicians, merchants, architects, and clergy- 
men — and the first thing that struck me was their sim- 
plicity of manner and plainness of speech. Here this 
truth was plainly demonstrated to me, that true genius 
and high culture are ever associated with frankness and 
unpretentiousness. For the first time I saw here men 
whose names were familiar to me as household words ; 
whose writings and speeches I had known since boy- 
hood ; and I was not a little pleased to find them plain 
and unpretentious men, with a lively interest in every- 
day affairs, and with dispositions as sweet and sociable 
as any I had ever known. 

After meeting Carlyle, Coleridge, Wordsworth, and 
Landor, Mr. Emerson writes in his journal: "Many 
things I owe to the sight of these men. I shall judge 
more justly and less timidly of wise men for evermore. 
Upon an intelligent man, wholly a stranger to 
their names, they would make in conversation no deep 
impression, none of a world-filling fame. They would 
be remembered as sensible, well-read, earnest men, not 
more." This is worth knowing. Many people imagine 
that writers are always talking like a book. 

Now, as to originality, it is true that all men of genius 
are more or less original in some way ; they all possess 



THE ORIGINALITY OF GENIUS. 299 

something peculiar to themselves, which nobody else 
can acquire, and which distinguishes them as individ- 
uals. But their originality may consist in a new way 
of putting things, or in a new and fresh way of looking 
at things, rather than in any newness or originality of 
thought. As a matter of fact, there is no such thing in 
literature as perfect originality; for all new thought has 
nowadays its basis in something uttered before. If 
you look into the history of civilization, you will find 
that nearly all the great discoveries, the great advances 
in knowledge, were, like the great inventions in sci- 
ence, made by different men at different periods of time, 
each improving on the other, each going a step farther 
than his predecessor. Vico was the first to show that 
man's course on earth is orderly, not erratic ; then 
Montesquieu showed that he is governed by natural 
laws; then Kant showed that the laws of history are 
to be looked for in the actions of the mass of mankind, 
and not in those of the individual ; and, finally, Buckle 
showed, or tried to show, that moral laws are de- 
pendent on intellectual, and that while there is no end 
to intellectual truths, moral truths are all known and 
fixed. And if you look into the history of literature, 
you will find the same thing, that all our great writers 
have utilized the labors of their predecessors, and bor- 
rowed largely one of another. The man who borrows 
and improves, or borrows and applies to new issues, is 
not a plagiarist, but a man of original mind ; for this is 
what our very greatest writers have done. 

"Name whom we may," says Mr. Huth, in his "Life 
of Buckle," "a little consideration will convince us that 
each has been greatly dependent upon his predeces- 
sors. Let us cite the first great poets whose names 



30O CULTURE BY SELF-HELP, 

occur to US ; say Homerj Virgil, Dante, Ariosto, Shake- 
speare, Spenser, and Milton. With the exception of the 
first, who can be left out of account, as we know noth- 
ing of his predecessors, it is easy to show their depend- 
ence. Dante avows his obligations to Virgil, a poet 
himself greatly dependent on Homer, and who, in his 
turn, has inspired most of the heroic poets of the Middle 
Ages. Ariosto has been greatly indebted to Virgil, to 
Ovid, and even to Horace. Shakespeare has no origi- 
nal plots. Spenser is deeply indebted to Ariosto, and 
we find at least one example of a very important idea 
common both to him and Shakespeare. Milton, too, is 
a boundless borrower. Indeed, so far does this depen- 
dency go, that not a single work of any description 
can be said to be original in the strict sense of the 
word. . . . Nor are the prose writers of fiction 
any more original than the poets. From the earliest 
times, before stories were committed to writing, their 
universal origin was in some episode such as a love 
story or a fight. This was told in various forms, inci- 
dents were added, stories divided and mixed, and made 
new again. Thus Spenser introduced an island full of 
allegorical personages into his 'Faery Queene,' which 
was after the fashion of many productions of this period. 
This again gave birth to Fletcher's 'Purple Island,' 
which produced Bernard's ' Isle of Man, ' from which, 
in its turn, arose Bunyan's 'Pilgrim's Progress' and 
Defoe's 'Robinson Crusoe.'" 

Mr. Huth might have gone farther back, and shown that 
Spenser derived his island notions from the early Celtic 
legendary tales, in which the Land of Promise is described 
as an island, with perpetual summer, plants in perennial 
bloom, and fruits of the richest and rarest quality. 



THE ORIGINALITY OF GENIUS. 3OI 

Thus we see that no man, however great his genius, 
is entirely independent of the rest of mankind, and that 
no work, however original, is made up of entirely new 
materials. We are all stepping-stones, one for another. 
"What can we call our own," says Goethe, "except 
energy, strength and will ? If I could give an account 
of all I owe to great predecessors and contemporaries, 
there would remain but a small balance in my favor. " 

Dr. Johnson used to say that there is no book so 
poor that it would not be a miracle if wholly made 
by a single man. "Plato's contemporaries taxed him 
with plagiarism," says Emerson; "but only the inven- 
tor knows how to borrow. When we are praising Plato, 
it seems we are praising quotations from Solon and 
Saphron and Philolaus. Be it so. Every book is a quo- 
tation ; and every house is a quotation out of all forests 
and mines and stone quarries; and every man is a 
quotation from all his ancestors." And the same writer 
says of Plutarch: "In his immense quotations and 
allusions, we quickly cease to discriminate between 
what he quotes and what he invents. 'Tis all Plutarch, 
by right of eminent domain, and all property vests in 
this emperor." 

The author of "Gil Bias" has been charged with 
plagiarism, because he owed a great deal to some 
early Spanish romances which he had read ; yet, though 
these romances contained similar scenes and similar 
names, they had very little of the wit, vivacity and sound 
sense of "Gil Bias." Le Sage, like a true magician, 
turned Spanish trinkets into French brilliants. Moliere 
also at first borrowed largely from Italian and Spanish 
writers, but he soon struck out into fields of his own. 
After his entrance to the H6tel de Rambouillet, where 



302 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

he saw a good deal of the polite world, he completed 
his first original and successful play, "Les Precieuses 
Ridicules ; " and then he exclaimed, ' ' I need no longer 
study classic authors ; I have only to study the world 
about me. " 

It was Voltaire who, in his "Reign of Louis XIV.," 
began the now universally followed historical method 
of subordinating the accounts of kings and queens, 
battles and sieges, to the history of the people, their 
progress in the arts and sciences, literature and social 
manners; and he, probably, got the idea from some- 
body else. Green's Histories of the English people 
and Buckle's " History of Civilization " are nothing but 
amplifications of Voltaire's idea. 

Shakespeare had, perhaps, the most original mind 
the world ever saw ; and yet he invented nothing, and 
created nothing but character. ' ' The greatest of dra- 
matists," says Richard Grant White, "he contributed 
to the drama nothing but himself; the greatest of 
poets, he gave to poetry not even a new rhythm or a 
new stanza ; he ran not only in the old road, but in the 
old ruts." He borrowed so largely and invented so 
little, that Charles Reade, who said he worked in old 
stories and appropriated everything, called him "the 
great Warwickshire thief." Dryden, who saw how 
much he borrowed, characterized him more justly : 
"Shakespeare," says he, "invades authors like a 
monarch ; for what would be robbery in others is" but 
conquest in him." This makes him the Alexander of 
literature ; the rest a succession of robber chiefs. What- 
ever he touched he embellished ; whatever he appro- 
priated he improved; whatever he borrowed he ren- 
dered forever beautiful. His borrowings are but the 



THE ORIGINALIT? OF GENIUS. 303 

skeletons of his mighty work ; for, in touching he re- 
vived, and in reviving he breathed immortal life into 
the old bones of literature. Of what value was the old 
story of Shylock and his pound of flesh till Shakespeare 
touched it with his magic pen.? Of what use was the 
old dead-and-buried romance from which he drew ' ' As 
You Like It," till he put the breath of life into it and 
made it a joy forever? 

Charles Reade knew well, notwithstanding his irrev- 
erent epithet, how to appreciate the mighty genius of 
Shakespeare. "It is wonderful," says he, talking to 
Mrs. James T. Fields, "to see how genius can borrow. 
Look at 'The Seven Ages,' as Horace has treated the 
subject, after his own philosophical manner. How 
fine ! and yet, how unlike Shakespeare, who chose to 
borrow the subject and make a new thing out of it ! 
Take the scene in ' Macbeth' between Malcolm and 
Macduff, which Shakespeare gets from Holinshed — a 
piece of wretched nonsense — and you find that, by 
the simplest transposition of words, he turns it from 
wretched prose into the noblest poetry ! The scene 
with the witches, which comes also from Holinshed, 
is equally wonderful, leaving the prose of Holinshed 
almost untouched, and yet touched so finely as to 
transform, not change, it into poetry." Thus we have 
a fine illustration of Lowell's rtriking lines : 

Thongh old the thonght, and oft ezpresst, 
'Tis his at last who says it best ! 

Other poets have exhibited this power of turning a 
bare prose statement into the precious ore of poetry. 
Milton, on reading in Isaiah that ' ' Lucifer sate on the 
mount of the congregation over the sides of the north," 
thus transformed it in his own grand style : 



304 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

At length, into the limits of the north 
They came, and Satan took his royal seat 
High on a hill, far blazing, as a mount 
Raised on a momit, with pyramids and towers, 
From, diamond quarries hewn, and rocks of gold. 
The palace of great Lucifer ; so call 
That structure in the dialect of men 
Interpreted, which, not long after, he, 
AfEecting an equality with God, 
In imitation of that mount whereon 
Messiah was declared in sight of heaven, 
The Mountain of the Congregation called, eto. 

"How small the spark," says John Mitford, "that 
could kindle a poetical flame in the mind of Milton ! 
How quick the apprehension that seized the slightest 
hint ! and how rich and fertile the genius that could so 
improve what it possessed ! " 

The great qualities of the mind are perception, com- 
prehension, assimilation and the power of reproduction. 
Emerson says that every sentence of the Lord's prayer 
may be found in the Jewish law, and that our Lord 
simply picked out the grains of gold and left the chaff. 
If I may be allowed the comparison, so acts every man 
of genius. Having the power of perceiving the true, 
the noble, and the beautiful, amid much that is of a 
different character — and this power comes largely from 
constant association with all that is noble, true, and 
beautiful in art and literature — he picks out the gems 
and puts them in a new and more precious setting than 
they had before. Macaulay had so quick an eye for 
anything good in thought or fancy, that he would pick 
out of a book, and retain forever in his rhemory, what 
was perhaps the only telling anecdote or well-turned 
couplet which it contained. In the same manner, Bret 



THE ORIGINALITY OF GENIUS. 3O5 

Harte and John Hay, from amidst a great heap of com- 
mon clay, picked out and held up to the admiration of 
the world, in prose and poetry, certain "rough dia- 
monds " of the California mines, whose noble traits 
would never have been noticed or known but for their 
discriminating eye. 

You will sometimes discover that the author of a fine 
poem has invented neither the subject, the incidents, 
nor the thoughts thereof; in fact, hardly the language. 
He has simply put into verse certain words, thoughts 
and actions of which he was an eye-witness, and his 
merit lies in the fact that he perceived the scene was 
worthy of being reproduced, and did reproduce it. 
Take, for instance, Morris's fine poem, "Woodman, 
Spare that Tree," and you will find that the whole poem 
is nothing but a literal transcription or reporting in verse 
of what had actually occurred in real life. The follow- 
ing letter, written by the poet himself, tells the story : 

"Riding out of town a few days ago, in company 
with a friend, an old gentleman, he invited me to turn 
down a little romantic woodland pass not far from 
Bloomingdale. 'Your object?' I inquired. 'Merely 
to look once more at an old tree planted by my grand- 
father, long before I was born, under which I used to 
play when a boy, and where my sisters played with 
me. There I often listened to the good advice of my 
parents. Father, mother, sisters — all are gone ; noth- 
ing but the old tree remains.' And a paleness over- 
spread his fine countenance, while tears came to his 
eyes. After a moment's pause, he added : ' Don't think 
me foohsh. I don't know how it is: I never ride out but 
I turn down this lane to look at that old tree. I have a 
thousand recollections about it, and I always greet it as 



3o6 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

a familiar and well-remembered friend. ' These words 
were scarcely uttered when the old gentleman cried 
out, ' There it is ! ' Near the tree stood a man with his 
coat off, sharpening an ax. ' You are not going to cut 
that tree down, surely ? ' ' Yes, but I am, though, ' 
said the woodman. 'What for.?' inquired the old gen- 
tleman, with choking emotion. ' What for ? I like that. 
Well, I will tell you ; I want that tree for firewood. ' 
'What is the tree worth to you for firewood.? ' 'Why, 
when down, about ten dollars. ' ' Suppose I should give 
you that sum,' said the old gentleman, 'would you let 
it stand .? ' ' Yes. ' ' You are sure of that ? ' ' Positive. ' 
'Then give me a bond to that effect' We went into 
the little cottage in which my companion was born, 
but which is now occupied by the woodman. I drew 
up the bond. It was signed, and the money paid 
over. As we left, the young girl, the daughter of the 
woodman, assured us that while she lived the tree 
should not be cut down. These circumstances made a 
strong impression upon my mind, and furnished me 
with the materials for the song I send you. " 

Now if you turn to the poem — you may find it in any 
school reader — you will perceive that it contains noth- 
ing but what is here set down. Does this detract from 
the merit of the poem or of the poet ? Will you say that 
he displayed no originality or invention ? Originality ! 
Why, he displayed a much finer and rarer quality : he 
displayed the power of seeing in life what is worthy of 
reproduction in art, and the ability to reproduce it in an 
artistic form. That is the power which our best poets, 
novelists, and dramatists have displayed. They copied 
from life what ought to be copied ; and in reproducing 
the real they simply idealized what they saw. That is 



THE ORIGINALITY OF GENIUS. 3O7 

why the so-called Realists are not men of genius : they 
have no power of idealization ; they copy grossly what 
ought not to be copied, and disgust us by detailing in a 
book what we instinctively avoid in life. 

John Leech, the caricaturist, usually copied directly 
from life what was peculiarly startling or interesting. 
He was sitting beside a friend one day in a London 
omnibus, when there entered an elderly gentleman in 
a very peculiar dress and with very marked features. 
Leech noticed him, and taking out his note-book, he 
said to his friend, who could hardly refrain from laugh- 
ing outright at the odd figure, "Just run your eye over 
that column and see what you make of it. " The page 
was blank; but in two minutes there was produced on 
it the very image and precise expression of the strange 
gentleman opposite. That gentleman figured in one 
of Leech's inimitable pictures in the next issue of 
Punch ; but of course the picture had no connection 
with the individual. Hogarth used to do the same 
thing ; for it is said he would catch a character on his 
thumb-nail, and keep it for future use. 

So with Morris and his poem. He had the eye to 
recognize a priceless jewel when he saw it, and, picking 
it up, he polished it, and gave it a setting which will 
ever command the admiration of mankind. A thousand 
other men might have witnessed the same scene, and 
made nothing of it. Probably scores of equally poetical 
scenes are exhibited every day without anybody notic- 
ing them. Multitudes have seen the scenes and heard 
the stories which Walter Scott saw and heard, without 
ever thinking of making a poem or a novel of them ; and 
scores have seen such scenes as " a mouse turned out 
of her house and home by the plough," or "a louse 



3oS 



CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 



crawling' on a fine lady's bonnet," without ever thinking^ 
of turning them to such admirable account as Burns did. 
Probably ten thousand persons saw and read the story 
in the Anti-slavery Magazine which gave rise to "Uncle 
Tom's Cabin, " and yet only one eye saw what could be 
made of it. It was a simple yet touching story of the 
flight and escape from Kentucky of a slave-mother and 
her child across the frozen Ohio River into the free 
Northern States; and this story, so simple and plain, 
struck the imagination of Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe 
so forcibly, that she evolved a beautiful romance, a 
living picture of Southern life, from it. This is what 
I call genius ; or, in other words, original power. 

Sometimes years elapse between the first impression 
and the work that rises from it. The impressions of 
youth are often revived and glorified in manhood or in 
womanhood. "Adam Bede" rose from a tragic story 
which the authoress had, in her youth, heard from her 
aunt. The latter had, with another pious woman, 
visited an unhappy girl in prison, stayed with her and 
prayed with her all night, and accompanied her to the 
place of execution in the morning. "This incident," 
George Eliot tells us herself, "lay on my mind for years, 
like a dead germ, apparently, till time had made a nidus 
in which it could fructify." When she first heard this 
story, she never imagined she would ever write a novel ; 
indeed, she never thought of novel-writing at all until 
long after she had begun to write for the press. But 
when she did think of it, this incident came up, and let- 
ting her imagination work on it, she wrote out a story 
which, fascinating, touching, unique, surpassed in power 
anything she had before achieved. Her mind was now 
ripe for this work ; she leaned that way ; and the inci- 



THE ORIGINALITY OF GENIUS. 309 

dents and experiences of her early life bloomed and 
blossomed into imperishable works of fiction. 

Genius cannot be forced ; time and inclination must 
have their way. Goethe repeatedly advised Eckermann 
never to write what other people wanted him to write, 
but to follow his own inclination, and so he would suc- 
ceed best. Goethe himself hardly ever mentioned his 
work to anybody until he had finished it. Sometimes 
the story which one man of genius will not touch is 
eagerly seized and utilized by another. "Hawthorne 
dined one day with Longfellow," says Mr. James T. 
Fields, "and brought a friend with him from Salem. 
After dinner the friend said, *I have been trying to 
persuade Hawthorne to write a story based upon a 
legend of Acadia, and still current there ; the legend of 
a girl who, in the dispersion of the Acadians, was 
separated from her lover, and passed her life in waiting 
and seeking for him, and only found him dying in a 
hospital when both were old.' Longfellow wondered 
that this legend did not strike the fancy of Hawthorne, 
and he said to him, 'If you have really made up your 
mind not to use it for a story, will you let me have it 
for a poem?' To this Hawthorne consented, and 
promised, moreover, not to treat the subject in prose 
till Longfellow had seen what he could do with it in 
verse. " 

How powerfully this story must have appealed to the 
heart of the poet to have caused him to make such ad- 
mirable use of it ! That which touched the heart and 
fired the imagination of the poet was heard with indif- 
ference by the novelist. I imagine it depends upon 
some answering chord in one's own experience, or in 
one's own nature, whether a story makes a deep or a 



310 CtJLlURE BY SELF-HELP. 

slight impression upon the mind. You may be sure 
that Longfellow did not go to sleep that night until he 
had sketched the plan of "Evangeline," and unburdened 
his mind of many of the beautiful thoughts and images 
conjured up by so touching a story. Many another 
masterpiece has arisen in the same way. I may men- 
tion that Schiller's "Wilhelm Tell" had a similar origin. 
It was inspired by Goethe's talk after his return from 
Switzerland. 

One word more about originality. If anything is 
supposed to be original, it is the Ten Commandments of 
Moses ; and yet recent discoveries show, according to 
Rawlinson, that "there is a very close agreement be- 
tween the moral law of the Egyptians and the precepts 
of the Decalogue." Moses was trained in the learning 
of the Egyptians, and adopted what was best in it. The 
Greeks and the Hebrews derived their civilization largely 
from the Egyptians ; the Romans from the Greeks ; and 
modern Europe from all three. And so it has been from 
the beginning of the world, and so it will be to the end. * 

* If any author could read all that has been written, he would 
find that he had nothing new to communicate. But if he could 
read all, would it be advisable for him to do so, and to refrain 
from expressing his own thoughts, because others have thought 
in the same way before him ? I think not. 

I have lately been reading " The Literary Character," by Dis- 
raeli. If I had read this work years ago, I would never have 
written some of the pages in this book; for Disraeli has expressed 
my thoughts better than I have myself. The thoughts are, of 
course, his ; but they are mine, too ; for I never, to my knowledge, 
read a line of Disraeli's works before writing these essays; and yet 
I find I have again and again thought precisely like him. He says 
himself that men of letters, " living at distant periods, or in re- 
mote countries, seem to reappear under another name ; and in 



THE ORIGINALITY OF GENIUS. 3lt 

this manner there exists in the literary character an sternal 
transmigration." Did the spirit of Disraeli, unknown to me, 
animate my pen, while digging in the mine of literary biography T 
That is, perhaps, a speculation more curious than profitable. 
What a mine of literary lore there is in his book on the literary 
character I How many thousand volumes he must have read to 
write this one 1 He was, undoubtedly, one of the most indefati- 
gable readers the world ever saw. There is hardly a page in his 
book in which he does not quote something from, or say some- 
thing about, four or five different writers. Except Buckle's 
History of Civilization, I never perused a book displaying such a 
wide range of reading. 

Goethe said that if he had read Shakespeare in his youth, he 
would never have written a line. Is it not fortunate that he did 
not read Shakespeare in his youth f I know one fine thinker who 
is such a devoted admirer of Goethe that he refuses to write any- 
thing because Goethe has expressed all his thoughts so much 
better than he can ! Is this wise? Even if most of an author's 
books contain nothing new, may he not succeed in writing one 
that is new? And is it not worth writing many works to produce 
one original work ? Goethe is certainly as different from Shakes- 
peare as Moliere is from Cervantes, and as Walter Scott is from 
all four. Nor can any man be an exact fac-simile of another. 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 



"UNCONSCIOUS EASE IN LITERARY WORK. 

CARLYLE declares that all good literary work is 
done without effort and with unconscious ease ; 
and yet his own work, though of excellent char- 
acter, was not done in this way. Whewell asserts that 
no man ever becomes master of anything until he does 
it well with unconscious ease. But is not this enviable 
power attained by those only who have studied much 
and practiced a good deal.? The "Vicar of Wakefield" 
was written with unconscious ease; but what an 
amount of labor preceded it ! Will any man assert that 
Goldsmith could have written this story when he began 
the trade of authorship? Carlyle himself is known to 
have corrected and recorrected, erased and interlined 
his work so much, that he was the terror of the com- 
positors who set it up. One man, who had worked and 
worried over his manuscript in Edinburgh, fled in dis- 
may from his "case" in London on finding he had the 
same author's manuscript to set up there ! 

At what stage does a dancer perform his work well 
and with unconscious ease? Is it not after much study 
and long practice? And is it not the same with a 



"unconscious ease in literary work. 313 

pianist or a violinist? So with authors; most of whom 
never, any more than dancers and violinists, succeed 
in doing g-ood work without much pains and repeated 
effort. 

"The art of composition is of such slow attainment," 
says Isaac D'Israeli/'that a man of genius, late in life, 
may discover how its secret conceals itself in the habit ; 
how discipline consists in exercise; how perfection 
comes from experience ; and how unity is the last effort 
of judgment." Two striking examples of this truth are 
presented in the experience of Fox and Curran. Fox 
was so fastidious in composition that, in an attempt to 
write a history of England, he could compose only half 
a dozen chapters in as many years ; while Curran, in an 
attempt to give an account of his own life, found com- 
position so tame, cold, and uninspiring that he aban- 
doned it in despair. These men were accustomed to 
speaking, not writing; and they found that the two 
things were by no means the same. "By a long habit 
of writing," says Goldsmith, "one acquires a justness 
of thinking and a mastery of manner which holiday 
writers vainly attempt to equal." And Voltaire speaks 
of that daily habit of composition which gives one ease 
of expression and perfection of style. 

It is true that many men of genius have produced 
their best work with little efifort ; and it is also true that 
those writings which were least esteemed by their 
authors were sometimes most highly esteemed by the 
public. But men of genius are not the best judges of 
their own work. They naturally consider those which 
cost them most labor their best, and those which cost 
them least their worst, which is not always the case. 
Southey's long and elaborate poems about the Moors, 



314 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

now forgotten, were considered by him his best work ; 
while his little accidental pieces, now found in every 
school-reader, he considered of little value. And Charles 
Mackay complained that while his easily- written ballads 
"earned the acclamation of the million, his conscien- 
tious labors of years were welcomed only by the choice 
few." But while his ballads were inspirations, his 
"conscientious labors" were mental elaborations. The 
former were composed with unconscious effort, the 
latter with conscious or conscientious effort. 

Yet the question is, would he ever have done any- 
thing at all with unconscious effort, had he not done 
much with conscious effort? I think he would not. 
Everybody knows that many great orators were at first 
exceedingly "conscious" in their efforts ; while at last 
they spoke admirably and eloquently with unconscious 
ease. So it must be with the poets and with all other 
artists. Practice makes perfect. Fox turned the House 
of Commons into a debating club to perfect himself as a 
speaker ; and Curran practiced incessantly at debating 
societies until he could speak as easily before judge and 
jury as before a group of college students. Had they 
practiced thus in composition, they would have written 
as well as they spoke. Their brilliant flashes, like those 
of all great orators, were entirely unpremeditated ; but 
these flashes would never, without their premeditated 
efforts, have come at all. 

The reason why the million so highly appreciate un- 
conscious efforts is because those thoughts that come 
easily into the mind and are uttered easily enter the 
minds of others easily, and are readily apprehended and 
appreciated. Labored, logical productions need some- 
thing of labor and logic to understand them ; and these 



"unconscious ease" in literary work. 315 

are not for the million. Mackay's ballads were written 
when the author's soul was agitated with the burning 
questions of the hour, aflame with the same desires and 
aspirations as the multitude around him ; and by giving 
expression to what they could only feel, he instantly 
won their approbation and applause. 

All great thoughts are in the hearts of the million, and 
it is the office of the poet to give expression to them. 
Buckle declares that all great reformers are merely the 
mouthpieces of the masses, the real exponents of their 
thoughts, feelings and aspirations. So with the poet. 
He simply tells people what they knew before, but 
could not so well express. What did Burns do but voice 
the thoughts and feelings of the "mute, inglorious Mil- 
tons" around him.? and what did Shakespeare do but 
reflect the great age in which he lived? How could he 
otherwise have been so highly appreciated, so popular, 
even in his own day? It is not the thoughts of the 
million that are vulgar ; it is only their language, their 
dialect; and this is because they are not trained to 
speak or write. Those who are trained express thoughts 
that are common to many in a style which is attain- 
able by few : that is all. 

When an enemy of Voltaire said that he was the very 
first man in the world at writing down what other peo- 
ple thought, John Morley remarked, that "this assertion, 
which was meant for a spiteful censure, was in fact a 
truly honorable distinction." So with all those who 
have uttered what the million have endorsed. Patrick 
Henry, in his famous speech against George the Third, 
and Daniel Webster, in his splendid reply to Hayne, 
simply expressed what millions of their countrymen 
were then thinking. So with Lincoln's speech at Gettys- 



3l6 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

burg. He jotted down on the back of an envelope the 
thoughts that came to him on the way, thoughts such as 
most men were thinking that day; and these, which 
cost him no labor, and came easily, met with swifter 
appreciation and wider popularity than anything else 
he ever uttered. They were things that everybody 
thought, but which he alone could express. 

A light song, a brief poem, or a short story is some- 
times the only thing that carries to posterity the name 
of a voluminous author ; but neither the light song, the 
brief poem, nor the short story would ever have been 
written had the author not done much work before- 
hand. Wolfe wrote many things besides the "Burial of 
Sir John Moore;" Gray many things besides the "Elegy 
in a Country Churchyard ; " Defoe many things besides 
"Robinson Crusoe;" but these alone have won the ap- 
plause of the million and kept their names fresh in re- 
membrance. Bret Harte's "Heathen Chinee" — a light 
squib struck off with unconscious ease in a moment of 
whimsical fancy — has procured him more fame than all 
his other writings put together. Who has read anything 
of John Howard Payne's writings besides his "Home, 
Sweet Home.?" or of Woodworth's besides his "Old 
Oaken Bucket.?" Savage survives in a single couplet 
(from "The Bastard"): 

He lives to bnild, not boast, a race ; 

No tenth transmitter of a foolish face : 

and Madame Roland in a single sentence, her very last, 
uttered with unconscious ease as she gazed at the figure 
of Liberty on the scaffold: "O Liberty! what crimes 
have been committed in thy name!" But what piles 
of other works were composed by these authors ! 
The works of "unconscious ease" are the products of 



"unconscious ease in literary work. 317 

those supreme moments, among practiced writers and 
speakers, when, animated by the events of the day, or 
by the feelings of those around them, they give voice 
to those "thoughts that breathe and words that burn" 
which cry for utterance. They are moved by that 
spirit of inspiration which is generally regarded as 
divine, and which, as I said before, never comes to the 
idle or the indolent. Pinckney's famous saying (which 
voiced perfectly the sentiments of his countrymen), 
"Millions for defence, but not one cent for tribute!" 
was wrung from him in a moment of high-strung 
feeling, when foreign tyrants threatened insult to his 
country, whose honor and majesty he represented in 
his single person. Could he have uttered such a sen- 
tence had he not been a practiced speaker? Could a 
farmer, a trader, or a manufacturer have said such a 
thing ? 

This, therefore, is certain, that those who were occa- 
sionally inspired wrote a good deal and spoke a good 
deal before they uttered an inspired sentence or pro- 
duced an inspired work. We all have our inspirations ; 
but we must watch for them, and make the most of 
them when they come. "We should especially wait 
and watch for those precious moments," says Mr. 
Whipple, "not common to the most beautifully en- 
dowed natures, but coming at intervals to all, when 
heaven seems graciously opened to our minds : when, 
through inlets of inspiration suddenly opened, stream 
thoughts and sentiments which, for the time, make 
existence ecstacy. 'Hold,' says an Eastern proverb, 
' all thy skirts extended wide when heaven is raining 
gold ! ' " 

How often we see men of letters passing days and 



SlS CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

weeks unable to write a line ! With them, as with less 
gifted mortals, it is only when they are in the vein that 
thought and speech come easily. "A man of genius," 
says John Foster, "may sometimes suffer a miserable 
sterility; but at other times he will feel himself the 
magician of thought : luminous ideas will dart from his 
intellectual firmament, just as if the stars were falling 
around him. " These are the inspired moments. 

Those who write poetry whenever they want to, sel- 
dom produce anything that lasts. Bayard Taylor, like 
Southey, had an astonishing facility at versification ; 
but what has he produced that has earned the "accla- 
mation of the million.?" In his letters he speaks of 
writing poems like other articles, so many this week, so 
many next month ; and he seems to have selected the 
name and subject of many of his poems long before 
writing a line of them. How different from Goethe, 
who never mentioned any poem he had in hand until 
he had finished it ! Such poems as Taylor's have noth- 
ing of that touch which "makes the whole world kin." 
They may instruct, but do not move. A great poet sets 
down his thoughts before selecting a heading for them. 
Macaulay laid down a rule for himself which worked 
well, and is worthy of imitation. "I attribute much of 
the success which I have had," says he, "to my writing 
only when I am in the humor, and of stopping as the 
words and thoughts cease to flow fast. There are few 
lees in my wine ; it is all the cream of the bottle. " 

Much as I believe in the power of work ; much as I 
think of steady industry, courage and perseverance ; I 
have no sympathy whatever with the Anthony Trollope 
style of working, with his ten pages a day, or two 
hundred and fifty words an hour, rain or shine, in the 



"unconscious ease in literary work. 319 

humor or not in the humor. That is the work of a me- 
chanic, not an artist ; and can never be anything more 
than ordinary piece-work. Every composition, to be of 
any value, must have a touch of inspiration in it. 

Most good writers are, in fact, so possessed by what 
they have to say, that they are compelled to give ex- 
pression to their thoughts in order to secure peace of 
mind. This is their means of getting rid of whatever 
trouble or agitation possesses them. They feel they 
have a message to deliver, and cannot rest satisfied 
until they have delivered it. Some, when composing, 
are so crowded with ideas that they cannot get them 
down fast enough, and take to short-hand writing, or 
making mere signs for their words. This rapid writing 
of authors Is what makes their hand so often undeci- 
pherable ; it is the thoughts they are after, not the 
words, and in their anxiety to get down the thoughts 
they forget to form words, and make little more than 
signs for them. 

Those who can dictate their thoughts have the ad- 
vantage of giving an easy, talk-like air to them, and 
of saving themselves much labor. But this needs a full 
mind, perfect composure, and complete mastery of the 
subject. Matthew Arnold condemned dictation, as lead- 
ing to a slovenly and careless style. Yet Scott often 
dictated his stories to his secretary, and Cobbett dic- 
tated nearly all he sent to the press in his later years. 
Macaulay, however, the great master of style, never 
dictated. He scored off his first draft at headlong 
speed, and then copied and polished at leisure. 

Many young persons, who are able and willing to 
write, are afraid to begin because they cannot tell all 
they know of a subject. They feel they cannot give a 



320 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

perfect picture of it, and hesitate to give an imperfect 
one. Well, perfection does not come at once; and if 
you set down honestly what you can about a subject, 
the reader will not miss what you leave out. For the 
reader is not likely to know as much about the subject 
as the writer, and so long as the reader learns what he 
did not know before, he will not be apt to blame the 
writer for not telling all he knows. 

A young writer for the press, who was asked to give 
a report of what was said and done at a certain meeting 
at which he happened to be present, hesitated to do so 
because he thought he could not give a complete ac- 
count of it. "You forget," said the editor, "that most 
of those who will read your report know nothing at all 
of the matter, and will read what you write as if it 
were all that took place." One must never forget this. 
It is not less than what took place, but more, that makes 
a bad report. No writer is expected to give more than 
what he remembers, or than what impressed him, in his 
account of any transaction. I suppose that our Saviour 
said ten times as much, or a hundred times as much, as 
his disciples have recorded of his sayings ; and yet we 
all read the Gospels as if they contained all he said. 
Our doubts are traitors, 
And make us lose the good we oft might win. 
By fearing to attempt. 



CHAPTER XXXV. 



HOW AUTHORS COMPOSE PECULIAR HABITS. 

THE habits of men of genius are as various as their 
characters. While some dash off their thoughts 
at headlong speed, and elaborate at leisure, others 
write slowly, carefully and correctly from the start, and 
absolutely refuse to meddle with their work afterward. 
Cobbett was one of these ; he did not believe in mend- 
ing. "Let it go," he says; "no patching, no after- 
pointing." So also with Thackeray, who wrote slowly, 
and rarely retouched what he had once written. Shel- 
ley used to set down his thoughts roughly at night, 
and polish them on the following morning. "When 
my brain gets heated with thought," he says, "it soon 
boils and throws off images and words faster than I 
can skim them off: but in the morning, when I am 
cooled down, out of a rude sketch I attempt to make 
a drawing. " Some writers touch and retouch at every 
reading, while others refuse to do this for fear that 
elaboration might spoil their work and take away 
from its freshness. This, however, depends upon the 
nature of the work. Gray had the ' ' Elegy " fifteen 
years on the anvil. Pope wrote and rewrote every line 
of the ' ' Rape of the Lock " twenty times before pub- 



322 CULTURE BY SELP-HELP. 

lishing it. John Foster wrote and rewrote his essay on 
"Decision of Character" half a dozen times before it 
satisfied him. Gibbon tells us himself that he wrote 
the first chapter of his Roman History twenty times. A 
short essay on an every-day subject, or a newspaper 
article, should be dashed off at a heat and never re- 
touched. The thought must be caught while it is liv- 
ing, and when thus set down, it will strike the reader 
as forcibly as it did the writer. But it is a different 
thing with a poem, or an essay on an abstract subject. 

It is useless to lay down rules. Every man has his 
peculiarities and predilections ; in short, his individu- 
ality. The best rule is to follow your own judgment, and 
do that which you like best and which suits you best. 
Thus you will come off best. Write only when you are 
impelled to write, when you feel that you have some- 
thing to say, and would be the better for saying it. 
And (as some wise critic has said) when you have 
written any sentence you think particularly fine, be sure 
to strike it out! It takes a long while before a man 
learns to discard all fine writing, and to put down only 
such things as are absolutely profitable or useful. 

After mentioning with disapproval Miss Edgeworth's 
practice of ' ' scribbling first, then submitting her manu- 
script to her father, and copying and altering many 
times over, till (if I remember right) no one paragraph 
of her 'Lenora' stood at last as it did at first," Har- 
riet Martineau says of her own manner of compos- 
ing : "I found that there was no use in copying if I 
did not alter; and that, if ever I did alter, I had to 
change back again ; and I, once for all, committed 
myself to a single copy. It seemed clear to me that 
distinctness and precision must be lost if alterations 



HOW AUTHORS COMPOSE PECULIAR HABITS. 323 

were made in a different state of mind from that which 
suggested the first utterance ; and I was delighted 
when, long afterwards, I met with Cgbbett's advice : 
to know first what you want to say, and then say it in 
the first words that occur to you. The excellence of 
Cobbett's style, and the manifest falling off of Miss 
Edgeworth's after her father's death (so frankly avowe'"' 
by herself), were strong confirmations of my own ex- 
perience. ... I have always made sure of what I 
meant to say and then I wrote it down without care 
or anxiety— glancing at it again only to see if any words 
Avere omitted or repeated, and not altering a single 
phrase in a whole work." 

Cobbett wrote best in the early morning, before any- 
body else was up ; so did Scott ; and yet, while Cob- 
bett could compose while his children were raising a 
tremendous hue and cry around him, Scott could not. 
Hazlitt was accustomed to stick a wafer on his forehead 
when he began to compose ; and when his housekeeper 
saw that wafer she did not dare to disturb him, even 
if a prince called to see him. What were princes to 
him when he was communing with gods and angels ! 
The physiologists say that the period of greatest mental 
activity begins two hours after breakfast. I often find 
it to be two hours after supper. Bulwer Lytton, for 
one, seems to have believed in the physiologist's doc- 
trine; for he usually did all his literary work in the 
morning, from ten to one. 

From the following beautiful passage from Schopen- 
hauer, it will be easy to see when he composed : " No 
sooner does evening come and the lights appear, than 
the understanding, like the eye, sees less clearly. For 
this reason, mornipg is the proper time for thought ; as. 



3*4 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

without any exception, it is propitious to mental and 
bodily exercise. Morning is the youth of the day. All 
is then cheerful, fresh and easy; we feel strong, and 
have all our faculties at command. We are wrong to 
fritter away the morning in late rising, idle pursuits or 
chit-chat; we should rather regard it as the quintes- 
sence of life, and hold it sacred. Night is the old age of 
the day ; toward evening we are exhausted, disposed 
to idle talk or amusement. Each day is a little life ; 
each morning a lesser youth ; and every night's lying 
down to sleep a miniature death." 

Artists and authors are, of all men, most liable to 
changes of mood and feeling. These are the things 
they work in ; for their productions are the offspring of 
mood and feeling, and when these are not favorable, 
they can do nothing. When Laube, the dramatic poet, 
had any difficulty in proceeding with one of his compo- 
sitions, he used to jump into a railway train and ride to 
some distant town ; and while flying over the country 
at the rate of forty or fifty miles an hour, thoughts and 
incidents came trooping into his mind, and the scene or 
act required was produced. When Auber wanted to get 
into a favorable mood for composition, he saddled his 
horse and rode out into the forest > and thus, while in 
body he rode the mundane Pegasus, in spirit he rode 
the celestial one. I have heard of eloquent preachers 
who succeeded best in the composition of their sermons 
while walking from village to village, or while strolling 
through the streets of a busy city. Whatever stimu- 
lates thought is the best preparation. Some writers, like 
Emerson, seldom, have a regular flow or rush of 
thought ; but, watching their inspirations here and 
there, scofe them down as they come, and afterward 



HOW AUTHORS COMPOSE PECULIAR HABITS. 325 

work them up into one harmonious whole. Some, like 
Charles Reade, go out on adventure in search of scenes 
and incidents for their stories ; but these, when found, 
are seldom of value. Reade confesses that his best 
things came unawares or by accident. Bacon has well 
said, "Those thoughts that come unsought are the most 
valuable. " 

Some, again, like Poe, were never so powerfully 
moved to composition, never rose to such heights of 
inspiration, as in the presence of calamity. It was 
while sitting at dead of night, watching by the bedside 
of his sleeping but fast-failing wife, that the ideas and 
the lines of the "Raven " came to Poe. Others have had 
a similar experience: Verdi, for instance. "On one 
occasion, " says Carlo Ceccarelli, ' ' when Verdi was en- 
gaged on his masterpiece, 'II Trovatore,' he stopped 
short at the passage of the * Miserere, ' being at a loss to 
combine notes of sufficient sadness and pathos to ex- 
press the grief of the prisoner Manrico. Sitting at his 
piano in the deep stillness of the winter night, his 
imagination wandered back to Ihe stormy days of his 
youth, endeavoring to extract from the past a plaint, a 
groan, like those which escaped from his troubled breast 
when, forsaken by the world, he saw himself constrained 
to smother the flame of rising genius. All in vain ! One 
day, at Milan, he was unexpectedly called to the bed- 
side of a dying friend, one of the few who had re- 
mained faithful to him ali.ke in adversity and pros- 
perity. Verdi, at the sight of his dying friend, felt a 
lump rise in his throat; he wanted to weep, but so 
great was the intensity of his sorrow that not a tear 
would come to the relief of his anguish. This state 
of paroxysm could not last. He must give vent to his 



326 CULTURE BY SELlf-HELP. 

grief. In an adjoining room stood a piano. Verdi, 
under one of those sudden impulses to which men of 
genius are frequently subject, sat down at the instru- 
ment and there and then improvised that sublime 
' Miserere ' of the ' Trovatore. ' The musician had wept ! 
Those of the company who were not already kneeling 
in the presence of the angel of death, at the sound of 
those pathetic notes, which seemed like the last sobs of 
a departed spirit, now prostrated themselves, deeply 
affected, at the feet of the genius of musical art. " 

The experience of another divine composer, still 
more interesting and instructive, is a practical illustra- 
tion of the saying that "genius is a secret to itself." 
"When I am, as it were, completely myself, literally 
alone," writes Mozart, in answer to the inquiries of a 
friend as to how he composed, " and of good cheer, 
say travelling in a carriage, or walking after a good 
meal, or sitting up during the night when I cannot 
sleep — it is on such occasions that my ideas flow fast 
and most abundantly. Whence and how they come, I 
know not; nor can I force them. Those ideas that 
please me I retain in my memory, and am accustomed 
(as I am told) to hum them to myself. If I continue 
in this way, it soon occurs to me how I may turn this 
or that morceau to account, so as to make a good dish 
of it. . . . All this fires my soul; and, provided 
i am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes 
methodized and defined, and the whole, though it be 
long, stands almost finished and complete in my mind ; 
so that I can survey it at a glance, like a fine picture 
or a beautiful statue. . . . When I proceed to write 
down my ideas, I take out of the bag of my memory, if 
I may use that phrase, what has been previously col- 



HOW AUTHORS COMPOSE PECULIAR HABITS. 327 

lected there in the way I have mentioned. For this 
reason, the committing to paper is easily done ; for 
every scene is, as I said before, already finished, and 
it rarely differs on paper from what it was in imagina- 
tion. At this occupation I can, therefore, suffer myself 
to be disturbed, for whatever may be going on about 
me I write, and even talk, but only of trifling matters. 
. . . I really do not study or aim at originality. I 
should, in fact, not be able to describe in what mine 
consists, though I think it quite natural that persons 
who have an individual appearance should also be 
differently constituted from others, intellectually as 
well as physically. At least, I know that I have not 
constituted myself either one way or the other." 

Yet Mozart was a great student of the works of other 
masters ; he seems, in fact, to have needed constant 
study of the works of others to stimulate him to pro- 
duce work of his own. " It is a very great error," he 
says, ' ' to suppose that my art has become exceedingly 
easy to me. I assure you there is scarcely any one 
who has worked at the study of composition as I have. 
You covild hardly mention any famous composer whose 
writings I have not diligently and repeatedly studied 
throughout." 

Sir Edwin Arnold thus stated to a correspondent of 
the New York Herald his method of composing his 
poetry: "Either I write my thought first and roughly 
on scraps of paper, or my daughter takes it down from 
my dictation. She is the only one who can do so for 
me. While I dictate to her I walk up and down the 
room and smoke. I put the rough notes in my pocket 
until the next day. Then I read the verses over and 
over, correct and copy all out myself, altering it very 



328 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

\ 

much and filling it up. These scraps I enter into a sort 
of day-book or ledger until the work is nearly finished. 
I treat the matter thus compiled as a rough draft. I go 
over it myself, polish it and transcribe it into a second 
book, which may be called the poem itself, but still in 
a rough state. Then I copy it out again, and finally in 
a fair manuscript for the printer. Every line of the 
poem, therefore, passes through my mind three or four 
times. Sometimes the lines are importunate and will 
be at once registered. Reading, smoking, driving, 
dressing for dinner — it does not matter how I may be 
engaged — the verses haunt me, dance before my imag- 
ination, fascinate me, demanding to be fixed : they 
must be caught then and there, or they will go. Some- 
times the right ideas come as suddenly as if they were 
electric messages. I have no particular time of day set 
aside for writing poetry. It is done, as I have said, 
when the spell is upon me, be it morning, midday, or 
midnight. " This was his method of composing poetry ; 
as for prose, he could compose that at any time as 
easily as talk. 

Alfieri prepared his mind for composition by listen- 
ing to music. "Almost all my tragedies," he says, 
" were sketched in my mind either in the act of hearing 
music or a few hours after. " Bossuet, when about to 
compose a funeral oration, spent several days in the 
study of Homer. Lord Byron, who did nearly all his 
writing at night, said, "I never could make much of 
a subject suggested to me by another." Few authors 
can. No ; an author, like other artists, must, if he 
would work well and profitably, write on subjects of 
his own choosing. 

Mr. Joseph Jefferson, the veteran actor, has lately 



HOW AUTHORS COMPOSE — PECULIAR HALITS, 329 

astonished and delighted the world by an admirable 
autobiography, written in the most charming style. 
"I have never kept a diary," he said to Frank Carpen- 
ter, talking of the way he composed his book, "but 
wrote practically without notes. I am fortunate in 
having a good memory. I wrote the entire book from 
that. I began it about three years ago, and wrote by 
fits and starts as the humor seized me. It was curious 
the way my mind worked. I would awake in the mid- 
dle of the night from a sound sleep for no reason that 
I could see, and would think of some of my past ex- 
periences. If I went to sleep again I would find in 
the morning that I knew that I had remembered some- 
thing during the night which I intended to record when 
I got up, but could not think what that something was. 
After this I had a pencil and note-book by my bedside, 
and at such times as I awoke and thought of the mat- 
ter I would rise and write out the material. In pre- 
paring the book finally, I found these memoranda of 
great value, and perceived that in most cases the first 
records were better than anything I could write. " Mr. 
Jefferson added that he did not see why an actor 
should not have a natural bent toward literature, and 
why he should not write fluently and well. His whole 
life is made up of the interpretation of literature ; he 
has to appreciate all the phases of thought and expres- 
sion, and his life is, to a certain extent, a time of 
education. Yet, remarkable enough, comparatively 
few professional actors have shown much ability in 
literary work. I suppose it is only the distinguished 
actors who attain distinction as writers ; and they prob- 
ably succeed in the one art by the very same means in 
which they succeed in the other; viz. by taking im- 



^3*^ CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

mense pains to do well whatever they undertake to do. 
Mr. Jefferson himself is a good example of an actor of 
this kind. 

Let me, in conclusion, lay before the reader a very 
remarkable thought from a very remarkable man, 
touching men of genius. Mr. James Parton, writing 
to me on my theory of Shakespeare portraying him- 
self in one of his own characters, says : "There is a 
mystery in this thing we call genius, which no one 
yet understands. How or why it is possible for the 
weakest and meanest of the human race — say, for ex- 
ample, Lord Byron, or Jean Jacques Rousseau — to 
produce such striking and powerful literature as they 
often do, is the greatest puzzle I know of. It has led 
me to suspect that genius is, as some Frenchman re- 
marked, not a sign of superiority, but of inferiority. 
The sound, wise, strong, victorious man, whom men 
lean on, and women justly confide in, who rear good 
children and found things that bless and endure, are 
not fluent of speech, and may pass twenty years with- 
out saying a ' good thing. ' " 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

SOME GEEAT OKATORS — THE SECRET OF THEIR POWER. 

ORATORY, poetry, painting, music, these are sis- 
ter arts. That which inspires the orator to elo- 
quence often moves the poet to melodious num- 
bers, the painter to Hving forms, the composer to 
melting harmony. Poetry, it is said, is eloquent paint- 
ing, and painting silent poetry, " Poets paint with 
words, and painters talk with the brush," says Cavacci. 
The presence of danger or the shadow of calamity stirs 
the soul of the orator as it does that of the poet, and 
the appeal of Chatham to the Senate, and of Rouget 
de Lisle (the author of the Marseillaise Hymn) to the 
people, are born of the same spirit. While the ap- 
proach of the " king of terrors " moves Verdi to the 
highest strains of music, the open grave stirs Bossuet 
and Massillon to the grandest flights of eloquence. 
Unwonted brilliancy of thought is produced by the 
most touching or the most threatening of events. 

The very first occasions on which the embryo orator 
is moved to eloquent speech are generally of this 
nature. It was at the outbreak of the Revolution, while 
menacing clouds were hanging over the rebellious Col- 
onies, that Alexander Hamilton, then a youth of nine- 



3^2 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

teen, studying at King's (now Columbia) College, made 
his first public speech. He was attending one of the 
open-air meetings in New York, called to protest against 
the tyrannous measures of the home government, when 
he was moved with a desire to speak, and receiving per- 
mission from the chairman of the meeting, poured forth 
such a torrent of eloquence that the delighted multitude 
rent the air with applause. It was at about the same 
age, while studying at the University of Madrid, that the 
soul of Emilio Castelar, the greatest of Spanish orators, 
was moved to public utterance. While listening to the 
speakers at a meeting in support of the Prim Govern- 
ment, he made up his mind that he could say something 
as good or better than they, and receiving, near the 
close of the meeting, permission to speak, he instantly 
arrested the attention of the departing audience, chained 
them to their seats, and by the magic of his words held 
them spell-bound for another hour. It was while at- 
tending the Faneuil Hall meeting of 1837, called to de- 
nounce the assassination of Lovejoy at Alton, 111., for 
printing and publishing an anti-slavery paper, that Wen- 
dell Phillips, then twenty-six years of age, made his first 
public speech. Hearing one of the speakers defending 
the pro-slavery tyrants, and declaring that Lovejoy "had 
died as the fool dieth," his soul was filled with indigna- 
tion, and he exclaimed to a friend who accompanied 
him, "That speech in Faneuil Hall should be answered 
in Faneuil Hall." "You answer it, then," said his 
friend. "I will," he replied, "if you will help me up to 
the platform." He struggled through the dense crowd, 
gained the platform, was lifted up on it, and the first 
sentence he uttered electrified the audience, and turned 
the current of feeling in favor of liberty. "Mr. Chair- 



SOME GREAT ORATORS. ^^$ 

man," said he, "when I heard the gentleman lay down 
principles which placed the rioters, incendiaries, and 
murderers of Alton on a level with the patriots and 
martyrs of the Revolution, with Hancock and Otis, 
Quincy and Adams, I thought those pictured lips [point- 
ing to their portraits on the wall} would have broken 
into voice, and rebuked the recreant American who 
thus slandered the dead ! " This sentence, the key-note 
to his grand career, announced the birth of an orator 
that day. 

When a generous impulse fills the soul; when one 
feels a strong desire to denounce a wrong or defend a 
right ; to enlighten the erring or expose the vicious ; to 
applaud the good or condemn the wicked, ^he should 
act on it ; he should speak ; he should obey the divine 
Spirit that moves him ; else he will forever miss the 
golden opportunity. For the best things in every 
speech, as Mr. Higginson says, are always the sudden 
flashes, the thoughts never dreamt of before. 

What gives birth to these flashes ? It is the circum- 
stances surrounding the orator : the eager throng ; the 
sympathetic feeling; the inspiration created by the 
glorious achievements or the dread disasters of the day. 
These are the things that cause the orator to utter 
thoughts which, moving or delighting the men of his 
Dwn generation, resound along the ages, and inspire the 
souls of every succeeding generation. Let me give an 
example ; let me quote a few sentences from the most 
eloquent speech of a brilliant orator — sentences which 
have charmed the minds and touched the hearts of mil- 
lions since they were uttered, and which will charm and 
touch millions yet unborn ,- sentences which, I thank 
God, may now be applied with equal force and truth to 



334 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

the United States as to Britain — I mean Curran's famous 
apotheosis of British law and liberty, in his speech in 
the Rowan case : 

"I speak in the spirit of the British law, which makes 
liberty commensurate with, and inseparable from, Brit- 
ish soil, which proclaims even to the stranger and the 
sojourner, the moment he sets his foot upon British 
earth, that the ground upon which he treads is holy, 
and consecrated by the genius of universal emancipa- 
tion. No matter in what language his doom may have 
been pronounced — no matter what complexion, incom- 
patible with freedom, an Indian or an African sun may 
have burned upon him ; no matter in what disastrous 
battle the helm of his liberty may have been cloven 
down ; no matter with what solemnities he may have 
been devoted upon the altar of slavery — the moment he 
touches the sacred soil of Britain, the altar and the god 
sink together in the dust ; his soul walks abroad in his 
own majesty ; his body swells beyond the measure of 
his chains, which burst from around him, and he stands 
redeemed, regenerated, and disenthralled by the irresist- 
ible genius of universal emancipation ! " * 

No man can be an orator without a great soul and 
lofty sentiments ; no man can be an orator who does 
not feel strongly the difference between right and wrong, 

* I have said that the orator and the poet are often inspired by 
the same canse. Compare, for instance, these words of Cnrran, 
the orator, with the following words of Oowper, the poet: 
"Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs 
Receive our air, that moment they are free; 
They touch our country, and their shackles f aU I " 
May not the orator have taken a hint from the poet ? All men 
of genius act and react on each other. 



SOME GREAT ORATORS. 335 

justice and injustice. He must be able instantly to at- 
tack the one and defend the other. When Barnave, the 
most finished speaker in the French National Assembly, 
pronounced one of his studied speeches, he seemed to 
have the better of Mirabeau ; but when Mirabeau, with- 
out a moment's preparation, stepped into the tribune 
he swept away his opponent's arguments as with a 
tongue of fire, and the Assembly stood by him as one 
man. The one was an elocutionist, the other an orator. 
Barnave was weak in reply, lacking preparation. Mira- 
beau was greater in unprepared replies than in his first 
presentations, and his most famous flashes occur in un- 
premeditated speeches. He had not only a great soul 
and lofty sentiments, but boundless knowledge and 
marvellous readiness of speech. 

A great orator, like a great poet, when he thus speaks 
the truth that is in him, touches the noblest chords in 
the human breast ; he causes every hearer to become 
better or purer for the hearing of his speech. Not only 
the pulpit orator, but the political, if he be a true man, 
leads the way to heaven ; for all true oratory is an effort 
to persuade men "to do unto others as they would have 
others do unto them. " Take this passage from a speech 
of Victor Hugo's — a speech which James Parton charac- 
terizes as "the most Christian thing spoken on earth 
since the dying Christ said, ' They know not what they 
do'" — and you will acknowledge that no man could 
hear or read it without feeling the better for it : 

"If to kill is a crime, to kill much cannot be an exten- 
uating circumstance. If to steal is a disgrace, to rob a 
nation cannot be a glory. Te deums are of small signi- 
ficance here : homicide is homicide ; bloodshed is blood- 
shed J it alters nothing to call one's self Caesar or Napo- 



33(5 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP, 

leon ; in the eyes of the eternal God, a murderer is not 
changed in character because, instead of a hangman's 
cap, there is placed upon his head an emperor's crown. 
Ah, my friends, let us proclaim absolute verities ! Let 
us dishonor war! No; bloody glory does not exist. 
No; it is not good, and it is not honorable, to make 
corpses. No, it cannot be that life should travail for 
death. No, O mothers who surround me, it cannot be 
that War, the Thief, is to continue to seize and immolate 
your offspring! No, it cannot be that women are to 
bear children in anguish ; that men are to be born ; that 
communities are to plow and sow ; that the peasant is 
to fertilize the fields, and workmen enrich the cities; 
that thinkers are to meditate and instructors to teach; 
that industry is to perform its marvels ; that genius is to 
accomplish its prodigies ; that the vast human activity 
is to multiply, in the presence of the starry heavens, its 
efforts and. creations, in order to produce that frightful 
international exhibition which is called a field of battle ! 
[The whole audience rises and applauds the speaker. ] 
The true field of battle — behold it ! [pointing to the In- 
ternational Exhibition. ] That is the true battle-field of 
the human race, the rendezvous of the masterpieces of 
human labor, which Paris presents to the world at this 
moment I " 

Victor Hugo was not only a great poet and novelist, 
but a powerful orator ; yet, of all the orators of France, 
Mirabeau seems to me to have been the most astonish- 
ing in feats of pure eloquence. Whenever and wher- 
ever he spoke, he carried all before him ; on whichever 
side he fought, victory unfurled her banners. Imagine 
him standing before the National Assembly when an 
income-tax of 25 per cent, was proposed; imagine the 



SOME GREAT ORATORS. 337 

deputies receiving the proposition with shouts of deri- 
sion and laughter; and then observe Mirabeau, who has 
been patiently waiting with folded arms till he can 
get a chance to speak, beginning his speech, hushing 
every voice, commanding rapt attention, winning his 
audience step by step, and finally ending by securing 
enthusiastic approval of and an overwhelming majority 
for the very proposition which they at first laughed to 
scorn — each deputy voting away, for the good of his 
country, under the spell of the orator, one-fourth of his 
own income, as well as that of his constituents ! Is 
there any orator to-day who could do such a thing? 

Again, imagine Mirabeau facing that National Assem- 
bly when the question came up whether the Assembly 
or the king was to have the power of declaring war — a 
question on which the deputies were almost unani- 
mous against the king, and clamorous to have it 
settled without debate. Observe Mirabeau mounting 
the tribune amid the jeers and defiant glances of the 
deputies ; and then look at his audience, sixty minutes 
afterward, eager to vote for the war-power being 
placed in the hands of the king ! Johnson defines ora- 
tory as "the power of beating down your adversary's 
arguments, and putting better in their places. " That is 
what Mirabeau did. He was always superior to his 
adversaries ; he could always give better arguments for 
a proposition than they could against it. Imagine him 
facing the ferocious Jacobins in their very den, the 
Jacobin Club : and, amid yells of derision, hatred, and 
defiance, roaring down all opposition, compelling si- 
lence and attention, and finally forcing them to adopt 
his views by acclamation ! If there ever was a man 
with superhuman power of speech, that man was Mira- 



338 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

beau ; if there ever was an orator of supreme power, 
it was he. In his pubHc career of twenty-three months 
he did more work, conceived more statesmanlike meas- 
ures, and pronounced more eloquent speeches than most 
other orators in twenty-three years. He was herculean 
in stature, gigantic in mind, and irresistible in oratori- 
cal power. 

It may be asked. How is it that Mirabeau, if he were 
such a great man, made such a miserable end? I 
answer : Mirabeau was naturally a good man ; he had 
a generous, loving heart, a kind and sympathetic 
nature; he was faithful to his friends, loving toward 
his kindred, and honest toward the people; but a 
vicious education, a tyrannical father, and a heartless 
wife led him into moral ruin. He was a man of public 
virtue and private vice ; but his vices hurt none but 
himself. 

Let me make a comparison, which will serve, per- 
haps, better than anything else to explain his last fatal 
plunge. Lincoln, in the midst of the Civil War, when 
overwhelmed with care, anxiety, sorrow and appre- 
hension, suddenly bursts into a cabinet meeting with a 
book of jests in his hand, and begins reading them to 
the astonished ministers : it was the reaction of the 
overwrought brain ; the leader of a nation at war with 
herself, seeking relief from the too, too great strain of 
care, and grasping at anything to help him. So with 
Mirabeau. The wise counsellor, statesman, orator, 
guiding the destinies of France in the most tremen- 
dous crisis of her history, propounding and defending 
great measures of relief and defence, warding off 
threatening disasters, keeping down evil factions and 
upholding patriotic associations, overwhelmed with 



SOME GREAT ORATORS. 339 

national business, and carrying France, like Hercules, 
on his shoulders — ^this man, so situated, without home, 
wife or child, without that sanctuary to which Burke 
in the midst of his cares fled for rest, relief and re- 
newed strength, suddenly plunges into a course of the 
most frivolous and ruinous dissipation, destroys his 
health, breaks down his constitution, and dies in an 
agony of pain ! Who does not see that this is a case 
for tears rather than reproaches ? 

Had Mirabeau lived — had he acted as wisely for him- 
self as he had counselled his nation to act — he would 
have saved France from the fearful red gulf into which 
she subsequently plunged, and enrolled his name 
among the greatest benefactors as well as the greatest 
orators of his race.* 

* Mirabeau had shown his power before entering the National 
Assembly. " The persuasive power of eloquence," says Mr. 
Ballou, " was never better illustrated than in the instance of 
Mirabeau when he pleaded his own case before a jury. His liai- 
son with the Marchioness de Monnier surpasses, in fact, all stories 
of romance. Mirabeau induced her to run away with him, for 
which she was seized and thrown into a convent, while he es- 
caped to Switzerland. His case was, in his absence, brought to 
trial; he was convicted of contumacy, and sentenced to lose his 
head. The lady escaped and once more joined him. Together 
they passed into Holland, where they were a second time arrested, 
she being again immured in a convent, and he confined in the 
Castle of Vincennes, where he remained for more than three 
years. After his liberation, he obtained a new trial, pleaded his 
own case, and by the impassioned power of his all-commanding 
eloquence he terrified the court and the prosecutor, melted the 
audience to tears, obtained a reversal of his sentence, and «ven 
threw the whole cost of the suit upon the prosecution." 

For a long time I cnuld not understand how it is that many 
artists, authors, orators and actors are so strongly inclined to wild 



340 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

and irregular habits. Kow I think I know how this happens. Has 
the reader ever aocomplished any difficult task snccessf ully f 
Has he ever got throngh triumphantly with something that has 
cost him mnoh thought, care, study and anxiety? Well, if he 
has, he will know how it is that the artist or orator, author or 
actor, when he has accomplished some such feat, in which all his 
powers have been severely taxed, feels like having a " blow out," 
something to relieve him from the strain under which he has so 
long suffered, and to indemnify him for the privations which he 
has so long endured. Speaking of the short but brilliant career 
of Artemus Ward, who was very fond of company, Joe Jefferson 
says, " He had that unfortunate desire for the second round of 
applause, which is so often fatal to the health and position of an 
actor." Aye, but there is immense consolation in that second 
round of applause. Charles Fechter, when the play was over, used 
to give dramatic impersonations before his brother actors, who 
could best appreciate them, which were probably finer than any 
he ever presented on the stage. 

Ordinary workmen have seldom or never any such uncommon 
strain in their occupation as those who work for the public. 
The mechanic, the salesman, the clerk, the book-keeper, the 
farmer, — few of those who do routine work ever undergo this 
strain, and consequently they seldom have the impulse to go on 
a spree. It is only when they get into some trouble and tension 
with their employers that this happens. Let us, therefore, look 
with charity and kindness on the artist or orator, actor or author 
who has this unhappy failing ; for he undergoes temptations to 
which few others are liable. 



CHAPTER XXXVIL 



KOSSUTH AND GAMBETTA COLONEL INGERSOLL S METHOD OF 

PREPARATION 

PERHAPS the most versatile, graceful and captivat- 
ing orator of modern times is the Hungarian 
patriot, Louis Kossuth, who is still living, an 
exile in Turin. When he came to this country, though 
he spoke in a foreign tongue and to a nation of stran- 
' gers, he outshone all our best orators. By his graceful 
words he won all hearts, and by the wide scope of his 
knowledge he astonished all hearers, 

"In cities where the vast population went forth to 
hail him," says Horace Mann, "in academic halls 
where the cultivation of eloquence and knowledge is 
made the business of life ; in those great gathering- 
places where the rivers of people have their confluence, 
Kossuth was addressed by the most eloquent men 
whom this nation of orators could select. More than 
five hundred of our select speakers spoke before him 
that which they had laboriously prepared from history 
and embellished from the poets, with severe toil, by 
the long-trimmed lamp ; and yet, save in two or three 



342 CULTURE BY SELIf-HELi*. 

peculiar cases, his unprepared and improvised replies 
excelled them all in eloquence, pathos, dignity, and 
exalted sentiment. For their most profound philoso- 
phy, he gave them deeper generalizations ; he outcir- 
cuited their widest ranges of thought, and in the whole 
sweep of the horizon revealed glories they had never 
seen; and while they checked their ambitious flight 
beneath the sun, he soared into the empyrean, and 
brought down, for the guidance of men's hearts and 
deeds, the holy light that shines from the face of God. 
Though all their splendors were gathered to a focal 
point, they were outshone by his effulgence. His im- 
mortal theme was Liberty — Liberty for the nations, 
Liberty for the people ! " 

How came he to acquire such marvellous power.? 
He is a born orator, you will say. Doubtless he is, 
but this alone will not explain his power. All-embrac- 
ing knowledge does not come by nature. Perfect mas- 
tery of a foreign tongue does not come without effort. 
The power of suiting his words to all persons, places 
and times, does not come without study. No ; when 
you examine his life, you will find that his power was 
the outcome of great natural capacity joined to inces- 
sant study and wide experience. A constant and inde- 
fatigable student from his earliest years ; an advocate 
at twenty-two ; a member of the Legislature at thirty ; 
an editor and public agitator at thirty-five ; a political 
prisoner and dungeon-dweller at thirty-sevQn ; a dili- 
gent student of Shakespeare and the Bible during his 
dungeon years ; again, on his release, a tribune of the 
people ; a pleader for popular rights and the emancipa- 
tion of the serfs ; a member of the Hungarian Diet ; 
its chosen leader, advocating with flaming tongue all 



KOSSUTH AND GAMBETTA. 343 

that is free and liberal ; then Governor of Hungary and 
Revolutionary Dictator during the great crisis of 1848 ; 
finally, the victim of treachery and defeat, a fugitive 
from his native land, proscribed and hunted down by 
the most powerful enemies ; imprisoned in Turkey, 
where he had fled for protection, and freed through the 
intercession of Britain and the United States — these are 
some of the experiences of the man who charmed Brit- 
ish and American audiences as foreigner never charmed 
them before. He himself describes his life as that of 
"a tempest-tossed soul, whose eyes have been sharp- 
ened by affliction. " 

Oratory became with him a flaming sword, a weapon 
by which he hoped to deliver his country from the 
hated yoke of the oppressor. He had furnished himself 
with everything that could aid him : he had acquired 
many languages ; had studied the masterpieces of all 
literature ; had stored his mind with the lessons of his- 
tory ; had left nothing undone that could aid or assist 
him in pleading for his country's freedom. Thus equip- 
ped, he was equal to every emergency, and a match 
for all comers. Take as a specimen of his power his 
own account, in his Manchester speech, of the way in 
which his words moved the Hungarian Diet in 1848, 
when he made his appeal to them for men and arms : 

"Reluctant to present the neck of the nation to the 
deadly stroke which aimed at its very life, and anxious 
to bear up against the decrees of fate, and manfully to 
fight the battle of legitimate defence, I appealed to the 
Diet for means of defence. Scarcely had I spoken the 
word, scarcely had I asked for support, and added that 
the defence would require 200,000 men and 80,000,000 
florins, when the Spirit of Freedom moved through 



344 CULTURE BV SELF-HELP. 

the assembly, and nearly four hundred representatives 
rose as one man, and lifting their right ^hands toward 
heaven, solemnly exclaimed, 'We grant it — Freedom 
or Death ! ' [The solemnity of gesture and voice with 
which Kossuth uttered these words, says the reporter, 
caused a thrill to run through the audience.] Thus 
they spoke, and there they stood in calm and silent 
majesty, awaiting what further words might fall from 
my lips. And for myself, it was my duty to speak ; 
but the grandeur of the moment, and the rushing waves 
of feeling that came over me, benumbed my tongue, 
and I was speechless. A burning tear fell from my 
eyes; a sigh of adoration to the Almighty God flut- 
tered on my lips ; and bowing low before the majesty 
of my people, I left the tribunal silent, speechless, 
mute. [Kossuth here paused for a few moments, over- 
powered by his own emotion, which was deeply recip- 
rocated by the audience. ] Pardon me, my friends : I 
was again transported to Hungary; the past came 
up before me as in a vision, and the shadows of 
our martyred heroes flitted before my eyes. I heard 
the millions of my native land shouting once again, 
'Freedom or Death!'" 

Thus does the orator describe the effect of his own 
utterances. Apart from the eloquence, apart from the 
grandeur of sentiment of this speech, let anyone who 
knows what it is to master a foreign tongue imagine 
what it must have cost him to speak English thus, and 
his admiration of the orator will he redoubled by his 
respect for the scholar. 

The most instructive example in the history of ora- 
tory — that which most forcibly teaches a young man 
the true nature of oratory, and the only way to'succeed 



KOSSUTH AND GAMBETTA. 34 5 

in winning his case — is the story of how Gambetta 
made his first successful speech. He was retained to 
argue a case before a bench of judges. He had pre- 
pared his speech with great care ; in fact, every sen- 
tence in it had been closely studied and committed to 
memory. The day of trial came ; the moment for his 
opening speech arrived ; and he began with a brilliant 
exordium that drew all eyes toward him. Then he 
entered upon his main argument in a similarly fine 
and florid style. The opposing counsel, Dufaure, an 
able lawyer and astute politician, glanced with an in- 
credulous and half-contemptuous smile at the young 
advocate ; he knew that that style of oratory could not 
last long, and that, if it did, he had nothing to fear from 
it. Gambetta began to stumble ; his sentences became 
incoherent ; the thread of his argument grew discon- 
nected, confused ; and in less than ten minutes he 
broke down altogether. Dufaure was generous enough 
to move that the Court postpone the trial until the 
young advocate could collect his thoughts, which was 
granted, and Gambetta left the scene of his discomfiture 
with feelings more easily imagined than described. 

On quitting the court-room he was accosted by an 
old lawyer, his client's attorney, who had watched him 
narrowly, and who, seeing that there was the making 
of an orator in him, determined to show him how to 
succeed. 

"Come along with me," said he; "I have a word to 
say to you. You have oratorical talent ; you can be- 
come an orator if you will ; all you want is to know 
how to go to work ; and this I can tell you. You have 
language, thought, feeling, gesture ; what you want is 
to be able to use these in the most effective way. Come 



346 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

along with me ; let us go in here'; and while I sip my 
coffee I shall tell you what to do. " 

Gambetta listened ; he had suffered defeat where he 
had' been sure of victory, and he was ready to listen to 
any suggestion that might enable him to recover lost 
ground. When they were seated, the old lawyer con- 
tinued : 

"It will never do for you to learn your speeches by 
heart. Such speeches have no effect, even when they 
are well delivered. If you mean to persuade men of 
the correctness of your views, and win your case, you 
must speak naturally, in your own words, in plain, 
every-day language, and without any straining after 
effect. You must look only to the facts and the argu- 
ments in the case. Never mind the words ; they will 
take care of themselves ; see to it that you have your 
facts, arguments, points of law, evidence, well in hand, 
and the rest will follow of itself. Spontaneous, natural 
utterances have an immediate effect; they please, in- 
form, persuade, instruct, convince; while polished, 
finely-worded sentences have no other effect than to 
draw the attention of the audience to the speaker, not 
to the subject. Just state the case, in plain language, 
to me, as if you were telling it to a friend. Don't 
strive for effect. Make it simply clear to me. Speak 
as if I knew nothing- at all about it, and give me a plain 
statement of the points at issue. Juries want eloquence, 
because they don't understand law ; judges want argu- 
ment, because this saves them trouble. Then, when 
you have stated all your arguments, when you have 
brought all your facts and figures to bear, you may 
close by appealing to the emotions, to the sense of 
honor, of justice, of right, of your auditors." 



KOSSUTH AND GAMBETTA. 347 

Gambetta saw that this advice was good. He stated 
the case in the manner required by the old lawyer, and 
in the course of a few days repeated it in the same way. 
On the day before the re-opening of the trial the old 
lawyer said to him: "Now drop the whole subject 
from your thoughts, and come along with me. We will 
go to the theatre to-night, and have a little fun. Before 
being serious, we must be merry ; and then we shall 
make those serious to-morrow who are merry to-day." 

The next morning, after a light breakfast, a cigar, and 
a chat about the news of the day, Gambetta entered 
court. He was in a cheerful, hopeful frame of mind, and 
perfectly self-possessed. Dufaure was there, but his 
presence did not disconcert him. He again began his 
speech ; but this time in a quiet, easy, conversational 
way, and without aiming at anything else than a clear 
statement of the facts in the case. He knew his case, 
and relied on his natural powers to state it. Gradually, 
as he approached the heart of his subject, he warmed 
up to his work ; the points of law, the arguments, the 
logic of his position, came out clearly ; he gained confi- 
dence as he proceeded. He felt that he was now mas- 
ter of his subject, and knew how to handle it. His 
words came faster and faster ; his thoughts and senti- 
ments rose with the occasion. He became eloquent in 
expression, as well as logical and convincing in argu- 
ment, and long before the close of his speech it became 
evident to every listener that he had won his case. 
Dufaure tried to answer him ; but he was unable to re- 
move the impression he had made. The judges decided 
in Gambetta's favor; his first great triumph was won, 
and the lesson he learned from the old lawyer was never 
forgotten. 



348 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

Such was the beginning of the great French orator. 
Let the reader associate it with that of Sheridan, of Cur- 
ran, and of Disraeli, and remember it as one of the 
secrets of success. 

Here is a bit of experience, on the part of a man who 
is himself a good writer and speaker, which I think 
worth remembering: "When travelling expenses were 
the only payment I received for my lectures," says Mr. 
G.J. Holyoake, in his excellent little book, "Hints on 
Public Speaking," "I used to walk to the place of their 
delivery. On my walk from Birmingham to Worcester, 
a distance of twenty-six miles, it was my custom to re- 
cite on the way portions of my intended address. In 
the early part of my walk, my voice was clear, and 
thoughts ready ; but towards the end I could scarcely 
articulate or retain the thread of my discourse. If I 
lectured the same evening, as sometimes happened, I 
spoke without connection or force. The reason was 
this : I had exhausted my strength on the way. One 
Saturday I walked from Sheffield to Huddersfield to de- 
liver on the Sunday two anniversary lectures. It was 
my first appearance there, and I was desirous to acquit 
myself well. But in the morning I was utterly unable 
to do more than talk half inaudibly and quite inco- 
herently. In the evening I was tolerable, but my voice 
was weak. My annoyance was excessive. I was a 
paradox to myself My power seemed to come and go 
by some eccentric law of its own. I did not find out 
until years after that the utter exhaustion of my strength 
had exhausted the powers of speech and thought, and 
that entire repose instead of entire fatigue should have 
been the preparation for public speaking." 

Sincerity, manly frankness of speech, this is the g^eat 



KOSSUTH AND GAMBETTA. 349 

charm of the orator. Look at the speeches of Colonel 
IngersoU, the most effective orator of the day : his 
utterances are all plain, forcible talk ; he tells you in 
the plainest, openest way just what he thinks and feels ; 
and sometimes, as he goes along, he naturally rises into 
eloquence. As soon as his feelings are moved he ex- 
presses himself in such a way as to move the feelings 
of others. Chatham's speeches were nothing but a 
series of broken sentences ; but their sincerity, their 
burning sincerity, carried conviction to every hearer. 
He did not care for polish ; he aimed at conviction, and 
in his determination to be convincing he was eloquent. 

Without this quality, sincerity, no success in any 
oratorical career, or, indeed, in any intellectual career 
whatever, is at all possible. The least taint of affecta- 
tion is fatal to all literary or oratorical effort. How is 
it that nobody reads Burns's letters, while everybody 
reads his poems ? His letters have something artificial 
and affected about them ; he wrote in a style which was 
not his own ; he did not speak in that way ; he imitated 
the writers of the reign of Queen Anne. His poems, on 
the other hand, are all his own — thoughts, feelings, 
language, are all his — he had no models to imitate, and 
needed none ; and thus, the frank, sincere outpourings 
of his heart, expressed in poetic language, have enrap- 
tured the world. 

Let the young speaker learn, therefore, to express his 
own thoughts, his own feelings, his own experiences, in 
his own way, and never imitate any man's style or 
manner, nor attempt to appear anything but what he is. 
Even with faulty grammar and defective pronunciation, 
the natural speaker is far more effective and pleasing 
than the most polished artificial orator. Highly spiced 



35© CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

preparations never come up to plain, wholesome food. 
We feel, in listening to the natural speaker, that he tells 
us what he knows, what he has seen, felt, or expe- 
rienced himself, and not what he has read or learned 
by heart. 

I shall never forget the speech of Mr. James Redpath, 
at a Twilight Club dinner, in which he gave us his recol- 
lections and opinions of the great statesmen, editors, 
and orators whom he had known. While telling us of 
the simplicity of manner and nobility of character of 
John Brown, Wendell Phillips, Abraham Lincoln, Horace 
Greeley, Lloyd Garrison, and others, he himself spoke 
in an easy, natural, unconventional way, apparently 
without any effort whatever, and yet with such force 
and power, that all listened with breathless interest, and 
yovi might have heard a pin drop. His description of 
the life and character of these eloquent men was itself 
a model of eloquence. 

Listen to the way in which the most powerful orator 
of the day prepares his speeches. Though we do not 
sympathize with his views, we may learn something 
from his habits : 

' ' Colonel Ingersoll's method of preparing for a public 
speech," says a writer in the New York World, "is 
simple and effective. Many people in the vast audi- 
ences who have listened to his flowing eloquence have 
wondered if his effects were produced entirely upon the 
spur of the moment, or if his orations were carefully 
worked up beforehand and then committed to memory. 
Neither of these theories is entirely correct. Colonel 
Ingersoll has in his employ a thoroughly efficient sten- 
ographer ; and when his material for a speech or an ex- 
tended address is all in hand, he dictates the entire thing 



KOSSUTH AND GAMBETTA. 35! 

from beginning to end. The stenographer subsequently 
writes it out upon the type-writer, and it is read over 
once or twice by Colonel Ingersoll, by which time the 
thread of the argument is thoroughly fixed in his mind. 
He then prepares a series of headings of the various 
points he desires to cover, and when he goes into court 
or mounts the rostrum he is armed with these headings. 
He has no need to commit mere words and figures of 
speech to memory. He has a singular wealth of lan- 
guage in which to clothe his argument, whatever it may 
be, and his only difficulty is to recall himself to the 
main track after being led off to one side or the other 
by the flood of his own eloquence." 

I say, therefore, in conclusion, to every young man 
and woman ambitious of intellectual excellence : Study 
all you can ; learn all you can ; see all you can ; reflect 
all you can ; practice all you can ; do all you can ; and 
then, if you be so disposed, embody your honest thought 
in some visible form ; place it upon paper or upon can- 
vas, draw it, paint it, chisel it, write it, speak it, sing it, 
build it ; express it so that it may be clearly seen, felt, 
heard, or understood ; work out your idea to the best of 
your ability, whether it be a useful plan or a new inven- 
tion, a beautiful picture or an epic poem ; and if you 
present your thought in such a clear, strong, telling way 
that it interests, attracts, and informs those whom you 
address, you cannot fail to succeed, and your work may 
be the product of what we call genius. 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 



THE LAST WORD — WEALTH — ^INDEPENDENCE — CONCLUSION. 

ONE word more; the last but not the least. I am 
afraid that you, like so many other young Amer- 
icans, look upon success as simply " making a 
fortune." That is the idea most young people have; 
and they really think this is " the greatest thing in the 
world." Now, I want you to know that this is a big 
mistake; and I want you to learn this now, that you 
may not learn it by sad experience. For the really 
successful man is not the one who has merely made a 
fortune, but one who has succeeded in finding his 
proper vocation in the world, who has learned how 
and where to make the best use of his talents, and who 
has made his life a benefit and a blessing to others, as 
well as to himself. 

I do not say that such a man may not make a for- 
tune; he may, and do the other things as well. Nor 
do I say that it is not commendable or advisable for 
a young man to do all in his power to get forward 
in the world, and gain a footing and a position in life ; 
it is so; but I maintain it is still more advisable, still 
more important, still more worthy of endeavor, that 
he should gain an honorable and noble character, that 
he should develop all his faculties to their fullest ca- 



CHARACTER BUILDING — THE LAST WORD. 353 

pacity, and make his mental and spiritual welfare his 
chief care ; for there are greater things than " making 
a fortune." " Seek first the kingdom of God, and all 
these things shall be added unto you." 

To be successful, it is not at all necessary that you 
should be rich. The most successful men, in the true 
sense of the word, are not rich. And one may become 
rich, yet be far from successful. For he who has not 
acquired peace of mind, and a conscience void of 
offense, can never, whatever his other acquisitions, be 
considered successful. To be truly successful, one 
must feel and know that he is doing something in the 
world; that he is performing some useful service, and 
" lending a hand " to others as well as himself. He 
will thus acquire strength of character, sound views 
of life, and a soul above the mere love of wealth and 
station. There is no success without honor; no hap- 
piness without a clear conscience; no use in living, at 
all, if only for one's self. A million dollars, with " a 
skeleton in the closet," will never give any man satis- 
faction. No, my young friend, it is not at all neces- 
sary for you to " make a fortune " ; but it is neces- 
sary, absolutely necessary, that you should become a 
fair-dealing, honorable, useful man, radiating good- 
ness and cheerfulness wherever you go, and making 
your life a blessing to all those with whom you have 
any dealings. 

Mind, I do not despise wealth, nor wish to discour- 
age you from the pursuit of it, to a certain degree; 
for wealth has its advantages even in point of char- 
acter, — indeed, I don't think any man can be com- 



354 CULTURE BY SELF-HELP. 

pletely independent in thought, speech, or action, with- 
out something Hke pecuniary independence. " Art 
empty sack cannot be made to stand upright.'* But I 
do wish to disabuse you of the deadly error of think- 
ing that this is the chief thing, or that the acquisition 
of wealth alone constitutes success. For wealth alone, 
or the things it brings, — I mean power and position,— 
will never bring happiness. 

There are thousands of comparatively poor men who 
are far more successful, far more useful, and far hap- 
pier, than many of the millionaires who cut such a 
large figure in the world. Look at Agassiz, who had 
" no time to make money " ! What a successful, what 
a useful, happy, beneficent life he led ! " Though 
dead, he yet speaketh." And look at Prof. Virchow — 
what a marvelous amount of good, great work that 
man did in his day ! There is scarcely a human being 
now living who has not been benefited by the discov- 
eries he has made. And yet he was comparatively a 
poor man ! 

Get wealth, my young friend; get position; get 
honor ; get fame ; get influence, and high social station, 
if you will; and let a thousand editors trumpet your 
name over the length and breadth of the land; but 
know that all these things will turn to ashes in your 
grasp, and leave you stranded on a barren desert, if 
you do not get them in some honorable and useful 
activity, in some sphere in which you think more of 
others than of yourself. Save, oh, save, my dear boy, 
every penny you can; deny yourself every luxury and 
every extravagance; abstain from every indulgence; 



CHARACTER BUILDING — THE LAST WORD. 355 

and let every penny tell in the way of interest and com- 
pound interest; but know that, if this be done with 
detriment to others, or with violence to your own 
conscience, the whole thing will turn to an engine of 
destruction, and consume you like a burning fire. The 
most wretched man on this earth is he whose pursuit 
of wealth has become a passion ; for to him the world 
has become a mere den of thieves, and the beauty of 
life is gone forever. 

Whoso takes the world's life on him, and his own lays down. 
He, dying so, lives. 

The reason why stock-speculations are wrong, is 
because with every gain one makes, another loses. 
This is why it is mere gambling; making money, not 
earning it. There is no production of anything for 
the world's use in it; it is simply taking money from 
one man's pocket and putting it into that of another. 
Now, he who tries to do this, or, in other words, to 
rise on the ruin of another, is simply selling his soul 
for money. That's the English of it. Judge, there- 
fore, O my young friend, whether such a man is de- 
serving of esteem or not. " The darkest day in the 
life of any young man," says Horace Greeley, " is that 
day in which he tries to make a dollar without earn- 
ing it." Be sure you steer clear, therefore, of that 
devil's maelstrom, the Stock Exchange. 

I am awfully afraid that you may be led astray by 
seeing what a great role the rich play in our social and 
political life, and what an apparently insignificant po- 
sition the poor occupy in it. There is nothing more 



356 CULTtJUE BV SELF-HELP. 

seducing, nothing more tempting, than this spectacle; 
but he who gives way to this temptation, who makes 
up his mind to become rich at all hazards, will soon 
become lost to all noble impulses, and take for his 
motto, " Everyone for himself and the devil take the 
hindmost." The chances are, that the devil will take 
him anyway; for "the mills of God grind slow but 
sure." 

Wealth is the god of the vulgar, the craze of the 
multitude; while peace, honor, culture, and character, 
are the aims of the wise. Every wise man tries to 
enjoy the beauty of the world, the treasures of art and 
literature, the joys of love and friendship, the peace 
of home with all its comforts, and to make his life a 
blessing to others as well as to himself. That grand 
sentence of Dr. Marden's, " Character is success, and 
there is no other," ought to be written over the door 
of every workshop, every school, every business house 
in the land. Mark Twain, by setting out at sixty, after 
failure in business, on a round-the-world lecturing 
tour, in order to gain means enough to pay his cred- 
itors in full, has won the respect of mankind and the 
proud consciousness of rectitude for his own soul. 
What immortal honor Sir Walter Scott earned by 
similar conduct! His unselfishness, like Washing- 
ton's, has shed a luster of glory, not only over his own 
name, but over that of his nation. He would rather 
die a thousand deaths than live for one hour a hope- 
less bankrupt. Keep the conduct of such men con- 
stantly before you; make them your bosom friends; 
and you will never become a mere money-maker. All 



CHAHACTER BUILDING — THE LAST WORD. 357 

material things perish ; but honor, character, and con- 
duct live forever. 

If I had the power, I would make every man who 
had secured an independent fortune, — say $20,000 a 
year, — devote a part of his time to the service of 
others, in some way. Why should any man go on 
making more than he needs to live comfortably ? Why 
should he not make room for others, less fortunate 
than he? The younger Pitt wanted to make every 
Englishman with £10,000 a year a peer. I would 
make an American Peerage, which might be entered 
by every American who had honestly earned, and was 
willing to live on, $20,000 a year, — a peerage in which 
the merit would consist, not in the amount of money 
he had earned, but in the amount of good for his 
fellow-men he had accomplished. We want some finer 
incentive for our young men than that of merely be- 
coming a millionaire. 

Finally, I would like you to learn by heart, as I 
did years ago, Burns's excellent " Epistle to a Young 
Friend," and mark especially this characteristically 
strong verse: 

To catch Dame Fortune's golden smile. 

Assiduous wait upon her; 
And gather gear by every wile 

That's justified by honor; 
Not for to hide it in a hedge. 

Nor for a train attendant; 
But for the glorious privilege 

Of being independent! 

THE END. 



INDEX 



INDEX 



PAGE 

Actors, their ability as writers.329 
Addison, Joseph, on the thoughts 

of the wise and the foolish. 186 
Adolphus, Gustavus, what first 

stirred his ambition .170 

Alfieri, how he composed his 

plays _• • .328 

Agassiz, how he had " no time 

to make money,". .... 155, 354 
Alger, W. R., on superior souls. 8 
Angelo, Michael, his industry. 76 

An American Peerage 357 

Application, what it will accom- 
plish 75 

Ariosto, how he borrowed. .. .300 
Arnold, Matthew, his " rem- 
nant," 40; on early English 
Poetry, 264; condemns dic- 
tation 319 

Arnold, Sir Edwin, how he com- 
posed 327 

Artists and authors, their irreg- 
ular habits, 339, note; their 
methods of composing. .. .324 
Astors and Vanderbilts, Swinton 

on 238 

Auber, the composer, his method 

of composing 324 

Austria, her lotteries _. . 94 

Authors, how paid, 84; advice 

to young 90 

Authorship, 86; Carlyle on, 86; 
its rewards 86, 87 



Bacon, Lord, his Essays, 5; un- 
acquainted with the drama- 
tists Greene and Marlowe, 
166; on best thoughts 325 

Bagehot, Walter, on Pitt, 220; 
on wives, 222; on literary 
men 292 

Balzac, Honore de, 85; his re- 
markable development of 
talent .177 

Barnave, compared with Mira- 

beau 335 

Beard, Dan C. on his own life. 53 

Beaumont, Francis, at the Mer- 
maid _. .••.•• ^° 

Beecher, H. W., his early timid- 
ity. 50; on the masterpieces 
of i ■ ■ 



antiquity 76 

Bennett, J. G., on rich parents. 235 



Blake, Admiral, his late develop- 
ment 167 

Bolingbroke, Lord, his industry. 79 

Bossuet, how he composed 328 

Bovee, C. N., on romance 131 

Brain of old people, the, 168, 

note; physiologists on 224 

Bright, John, on the House of 

Lords 235 

Bronte, Charlotte, her charac- 
ters 294 

Brougham, Lord, on great men. 149 
Broughton, Miss Rhoda, her first 

work ..184 

Brown, John, of Haddington, his 

life 57 

Brown, Dr. John, on big souls.. 139 
Brown, J. B., on the awakening 

mind 171 

Browning, Robert, on art 131 

Buchanan, Robert, his advice to 

Trollope 82 

Buckle, H. T., on the influence 
of mothers, 221; on the in- 
fluence of climate and 
scenery, 255; his recrea- 
tions, 281; on Sir Isaac 
Newton, 290; how he 
travelled, 293 ; what he 
proved, 299; his History of 

Civilization 302, 311 

Buckley, Dr. J. M., on news- 
paper reading, 41; acknowl- 
edgment of indebtedness to, 
preface. 
Bunyan, John, the judgment of 
friends on his work, 89; his 
late development, 167; his 
Pilgrim's Progress, 192; 

whence he derived it 300 

Burgundy, Duke of, and Feneloni72 
Burke, Edmund, his Reflections, 
89; in Parliament, 102; his 
influence on Fox, 247 ; John- 
son on 297 

Burns, Robert, 38; his love of 
rhyming, 160; his wish to 
distinguish himself, 171; his 
early experience and sur- 
roundings, 239, 242; how he 
composed " Scots wha hae," 
287; how he observed, 307; 

on independence 357 

Burritt, Elibu 71 



361 



362 



INDEX!^ 



PAGE 

Burton, John Hill, his hobby.. 281 
Byron, Lord, 38; quotation from, 
49; his precocity, 166; his 
Hours of Idleness, 177; his 
evil development, 214; what 
inspired his greatest poem, 
251; how he composed, 328; 
Parton on, 330; on his 
travels, note 16 

Calhoun, John C, as an orator. 106 

Cameron, Adam S 125 

Cameron, John, on Celtic Lit- 
erature, note 264 

Campbell, how he worked 236 

Canova,_ the sculptor, his pre- 
cocity 166 

Carlyle, Thomas, on literature as 
a profession, 86; on Rous- 
seau's Emile, 134; his Es- 
says, 177; on editors of the 
future, 270; on good lit- 
erary work, 312; his man- 
ner of writing ...312 

Carnegie, Andrew, on organiza- 
tion, 154, iss; on the 
prophets (profits) 17S 

Castelar, Emilio, as an orator, 

108; his first speech .-332 

Cavour, Count, 143, 144; his 
recreations 281 

Celtic literature 263 

Cervantes, when he wrote Don 

Quixote 167 

Chace, Jonathan, his education. 21 

Chalmers, Dr., in early youth.. 163 

Character, the result of de- 
velopment 214, 2If 

Chatterton, Thomas, his unfor- 
tunate fate 165 

Chesterfield, Lord, on attention, 

44 ;_ his early bashfulness. . 50 

Chickering, Jonas, how he be- 
came a piano-maker 19 

Chatham, Lord, described by 
Grattan, 102; his lofty 
character, 103-104; his senti- 
ments toward America, 104; 
his name omitted, 147, 
note; long-range marksman, 
143; compared with his son, 
2i8; how inspired, 331; his 
speeches 349 

Clarke, James Freeman, on 
newspaper-reading 41 

Clay, Henry, as an orator, 107; 
compared with Fox and 
Henry, 249; anecdote about.2So 

Clive, Lord, in retirement 279 

Cobbett, Wm., his life, 63, 68; 
his French Grammar, 72; 



PAGE 

how first stirred into in- 
tellectual life, 171; how he 
learned to compose, 191; his 
English Grammar, 191; on 
French women, 199; his 
habit of dictating in com- 
position, 319; his advice, 
323; when he wrote best.. 323 

Cobden, Rich., on Burns's birth- 
place 7 

Cockburn, Lord, anecdote told 
by 112 

Coleridge, S. T., on genius, 43; 
his weak will, 92; influence 
of scenery on, 251; on 
Mont Blanc 252 

Composition, how to begin origi- 
nal, note 232 

Compositors, how they become 
editors 193 

Comte, M., his Calendar of great 
men .••..-. 141 

Conversation, its value 196 

Copernicus, how he made his 
grand discovery 291 

Cowley, Abraham, quotation 
from, 12; his early verses.i6s 

Cowper, Wm., his late develop- 
ment, 167; how he composed, 
286; on common things, 
294; on British liberty, note.334 

Cozzens, Luke, his long speech. 114 

Crawford, Marion, how he wrote 

Mr. Isaacs 185 

Creamer, Tom 126 

Cromwell, Oliver, his late de- 
velopment, 167; at the out- 
break of the Civil War... 179 

Curran, John Philpot, his own 
account of his first efforts, 
116; on Scotland, 263; his 
difficulty in composition, 
313; on British law and 
liberty 334 

Curtis, G. W._. as a bookseller. . 40 

Cynic _ and misanthrope, the.... 231 

Cynicism, literature of 273 

Damien, Father, his heroism. . .230 

Danger of temptation 356 

Dante, his answer to the Prince 
of Verona, 31; how he 
came to write the Inferno, 
181; born in a city, 269; 

how he borrowed 300 

Da Vinci, Leonardo 78 

Davy, Sir Humphrey 96 

Debating Society 195 

Debate, arena of 100 

Debating Societies, 109, 112; in 
England and Scotland.... 119 



INDEXi^ 



363 



PAGE 

Defoe, Daniel, his many occu- 
pations, 17; at what age he 
produced Robinson Crusoe. 167 

Delane, John, his career 269 

De Lisle, Rouget, how inspired. 331 
Demosthenes, his first attendance 

at court 170 

De Quincey, on genius and 

talent 27 

Dewey, Dr., on eloquence, 99; on 

genius 286 

Dick, the geologist, on editors . . 42 

Dickens, Charles, his Little Nell, 

34; how he wrote his first 

work, 283; on entering a 

city by night, 289; whence 

he drew his scenes ..294 

Dictations, their great value in 

education ._. 189, 193 

Dictating in composition 319 

D'Israeli, Benjamin, his failure 

at first SI 

D'Israeli, Isaac, his Literary 
Character, 310; on pompo- 

sition 313 

Douglas, Stephen A 105 

Dr. Harden, on success 356 

Drumont, M., on the Jews.227, 236 
Dryden, John, on Shakespeare. 302 

Ducey, Michael 123 

Dufaure, opposed to Gambetta 

in court 34S, 347 

Duval, Valentine, his life 58 



Editor, advice of an, to young 
reporter 320 

Edgeworth, Miss, her manner of 

composing 322 

Editors, where most of them are 
born and educated, 269; 
Carlyle on, 270; graduates 
of the composing-room. .. .193 

Eliot, George, how she came to 
write fiction, 182; her power 
of dramatic presentation, 
284; her characters, 294; 
source of her Adam Bede.308 

Emerson, R. W., on hereditary 
genius, 220, note; on his 
son, 237; on Plutarch, 33, 
301 ; on meeting eminent 
men, 298; on originality, 
301; on the Lord's prayer, 
304; his method of compos- 
ing 324 

English poetry, Arnold on.... 264 

Erskine, Lord, how he became 

a lawyer 18 

Experience the basis of fiction, 
132; the basis of all knowl- 
edge 23i» 232 



PAGE 

Fechter, Charles, his acting after 

the play 340 

Fenelon and his pupil 172 

Fields, Mrs. J. T., on Shake- 
speare. 303; on Hawthorne 
and Longfellow .•■309 

Foster, John, on the generality 
of readers, 43; on some 
clergymen, 43; on rural 
scenery, 253; his manner 
of composing 322 

Fox, Charles James, compared 
with Patrick Henry, 247; 
compared with Pitt, 248; his 
speeches, 248; his fastidi- 
ousnesss i n composi- 
tion 313, 314 

Frankfort on the Maine author's 
visit to . _. I a 

Franklin, Benj., how he learned 
to write, 191; how he dis- 
covered the cause of thun- 
der and lightning 290 

Franklin Debating Society 120 

Francis, Sir Philip, on Chatham, 

220 ; on Fox 247 

Frederick II. _ of Germany, his 
wise policy 146, 147 

French grammar, learning of. 72 



Galton, on hereditary genius... 221 

Galvani 96 

Gambetta, Leon, his first speech, 

344'347 

Garfield, James A., on Lincoln, 
48; on speech-making, 98; 

on awakening genius 172 

Garve, Christian, on composi- 
tion _ 232 

Geography, teaching it 203 

George the Third, his connec- 
tion with Pitt, 221; his stu- 
pid policy 245, 246 

Genius, defined, 24; Von Hart- 
mann on, 26; different from 
talent, 27; De Quincey on, 
27; Nordau's definition of, 
28; Schopenhauer on, 29; 
origin of the word, 29; 
who possesses it, 31; needs 
training, 36; the man who 
has it, 49; not suppressed 
by poverty, 53; Macaulay 
on, 75 ;_ Tyler on, 76; other 
conceptions of, 138, 148; 
Schopenhauer's idea of, 
143; compared with talent, 
141, 142; how men of 
genius work, 184; who have 
it, 187; hereditary, 213; 
Spencer on, 221: the abodes 



364 



INDE^:!^ 



PAGE 

Genius — Continued. 

of, 238; "the accident 
which produced that par- 
ticular designation of mind," 
239; men of, 283; how re- 
garded by the people, 284; 
Lessing on, 285; everything 
speaks to the eye of, 289; 

Parton on 330 

German language, learning of. 73 
German students, living with.. 12 
Germans, the, how they speak 
English, 72; how they suc- 
ceed, 9S; in Paris 268 

Gibbon, Edward, his industry, 
79, 181; how he wrote his 

Roman history 322 

Gibson, John, whence he de- 
rived his forms and figures.287 
Gladstone, Wm. E., his gradual 
progress, 179, 180; his rec- 
reations 281 

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 
on individual life, 5, pref- 
ace; his birthplace, 12; his 
poems based on real events, 
132; what he wrote in his 
twelfth year, 165; how he 
composed Faust, 181; his 
belief in the immortality 
of the soul, 212; influence 
of » Switzerland on, 251; his 
personal experiences turned 
into poetry, 288; on the 
human skull, 290; on man, 
293 ; on originality, 301 ; his 
advice to Eckermann, 308; 
how he inspired Schiller, 
310; what he said of Shake- 
speare 311 

Goldsmith, Oliver, his Vicar, 
iSS; his character, 156; his 
ease in composition, 312; on 

the habit of writing 313 

Grammar, the study of 192 

Grant, General, S4'> his one 
mistake, 94; his late de- 
velopment, 167; at the be- 
ginning of his career 179 

Grattan, Henry, on Chatham.. 102 
Gray, his Elegy, S3. 56, 321; on 

mountain scenery 254 

Greatest thing in the world.... 3 52 
Greig, the composer, on the 

scenery of Norway 253 

Greeks, their _ development 

through the influence of 

climate 255 

Greeley, Horace, on poverty .... 74 
Green, the historian, his hero- 
ism, ss; his histories .... 303 



PAGB 

Greene, the dramatist, unknown 
to Bacon 166 

Grotius, Hugo, his precocity. ..165 



Hale, E. E., on a Sunday-school 
speaker, 113; on plain 
speech, 116; on hereditary 
genius, 220, note. 

Halleck, the poet, his hobby.. 282 

Halsey, Dr., on Scotland 263 

Hamilton, Alex., his first speech, 
:33i, 332 

Handel, his early devotion to 
music 161 

Harte, Bret, his rough diamonds.30S 

Harvey, Wm., how he made his 

discovery 291 

Hastings, Warren, the dream of 

his youth 279 

Hawthorne, Julian, on the re- 
wards of literature 86 

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, his in- 
spiration, 288; his interview 
with Longfellow 309 

Hay, John, on Castelar's elo- 
quence, 108; his rough dia- 
monds 305 

Haydn, the composer, when he 

produced the Creation. .. .168 

Hazlitt, Wm.. how he composed.323 

Hereditary talents and virtues, 

213; hereditary genius 218 

Henry, Patrick, his education, 
244; how his love of liberty 
was developed 246, 247 

Heroes and heroines 228, 229 

Herschel, the astronomer, his 

hobby 282 

Higginson, Col.. on sudden 

flashes 333 

Highlanders, their early cus- 
toms 264 

Historic localities, inspiring 

poets 288 

History, how it should be taught.224 

Hobbies 281, 282 

Hogarth, on genius 25 

Holcroft, Thomas, his life 45 

Holmes, O. W., his forte, 21; 
how he composed Old Iron- 
sides 286 

Holyoake. G. J., on the young 
student, 178; his experience 
in public speaking 348 

Homer, his predecessors, 97; 
where born, 269; inspired 
poets of the Middle Ages, 
300; is studied by Bossuet.328 

Hood, Tom, what inspired his 
poems 287 



INDEXI^ 



365 



PAGE 

House of Commons, its power.. iig 
Howells, Wm. D., on genius.. 24 
Hudson, H. N., his edition of 
Shakespeare, 198; on Shake- 
speare's mother 222 

Hugo, Victor, his rank as a 
writer, 141; his precocious 
works, 166; his great 

speech 335 

Huxley, T. H., on investigators. 23 

Immortality of the soul 212 

Ingersoll, Robert G., as an 
orator, 105; on real his- 
tory, 157; his manner of 
speaking, 349; his method 
of preparing a speech 350 

Ingres, the painter, his early 

training 178 

Inventions, how made, 96; how 
suggested iS3 

Ireland, her territory, 262; her 
early literature 263 

Jaeger, Hans, his poverty 86 

Jefferson, Joseph, how he com- 
posed 328 

Jews, the wealth and character 
of, 226; those in France.236 

Jockey-life 46, 47 
ohnson. Dr. Samuel, with Sav- 
age, 9; his advice to Bos- 
well, 91; his talk, lis; on 
Burke, 297; on old age, 
168; on the making of a 
book, 301; his definition of 
oratory 337 

5 ones. Sir Wm., on capacity. .214 
onson, Ben ig 

Kant, Emanuel, what he 
showed 299 

Kepler, how he made his dis- 
coveries 291 

Kossuth, Louis, on a hero, 53; 
his career, 55; his power 
as an orator 341, 344 

Lamb, Charles, his pension.... 234 

Languages, learning of 72 

Lawrence, Sir Thomas, his pre- 
cocity 166 

Laube, his method of composing.324 
Leech, John, how he copied 

from life 307 

Leigh Hunt, his walks 7 

Le Sage, his plagiarism 301 

Lessing, G. E., on genius 281 

Lewis, Sir Cornewall, his hobby.28s 



PAGE 

Lincoln, Abraham, as an orator, 
104; Garfield on. 48; long- 
range marksman, 143, 144; 
his experience in the Civil 

War 179 

Liszt, the musician, his pre- 
cocity 165 

Literary work, how paid 84 

Literary men, their homes and 

haunts 8-10 

Locke, the philosopher, on tal- 
ents, 214; how he acquired 

knowledge 293 

Longfellow, Henry W., his first 
work, 85; his translation, 
177; whence he derived 

" Evangeline " 308 

Long-range marksmen 143 

L'Ouverture, Toussaint 141 

Lowell, J. R., on originality. . .303 
Loyola, the Jesuit, how first in- 
spired 170 

Luther, Martin, how first roused, 
170; at the beginning of 

his career 179 

Lytton, Bulwer, on talent, 47; 
on the immortality of the 
soul, 212; his immense ac- 
tivity, 235- origin of his 
" Richelieu 293 



Macaulay, T. B., his idolatry 
of Milton, 16; on genius, 
75 ;_ his manner of com- 
posing, 77; his essays, 177; 
on Hastings, 279, 280; his 
recreations, 281; his criti- 
cal faculty, 304; never dic- 
tated in composing 319 

Mackintosh, Sir James, his in- 
dolence 93 

Magazines, how edited now ... 86 

Man, as distinguished from the 

animal, 2n; his capabilities.212 

Man of genius, how he sees.289, 304 

Mann, Horace, on self-improve- 
ment, 74; on Louis Kos- 
suth 341 

Mark Twain, his heroism 356 

Marlborough, Duke of, his late 

development 167 

Marlowe, Chris., his early 

genius 166 

Marshall, Chief Justice, on 
mountains 244 

Martineau, Harriet, on inde- 
pendence through work, 
239; her manner of com- 
posing 322 



366 



INDEXl^ 



PACE 

Maspero, Monsieur, one of his 
discoveries 295 

Mazzini, Giuseppe, how first 
moved ^to act 171 

Men of genius, lives and works 
of, 283; how they work, 
184; Parton on 330 

Mill, John Stuart, on free- 
will 225 

Miller, Hugh, how first stirred 
to think, 171; his hobby.. 282 

Miltiades, how first roused to 
study 170 

Milton, John, his activity, 154; 
when he wrote Paradise 
Lost, 167; his first con- 
ceptions of this poem, 181; 
how he could transform 
prose into jpoetry 303 

Mirabeau, 38; his industry, 80; 
his late development, 167; 
compared with Patrick 
Henry, 245; how he out- 
shone Barnave, 335; his 
marvellous power as an 
orator 336, 340 

Mitford, John, on Milton 304 

Moliere, his youth and school- 
ing, 162; where born, 269; 
his borrowings 301 

Morris, his Woodman, Spare 
that Tree 305, 307 

Moltke, von, his late develop- 
ment 167 

Moore, Tom, on the history of 
Ireland 263 

Montesquieu, his industry, 80; 
on writing well, 98; what 
he showed 299 

More, Sir Thomas, his "Utopia," 

150; his fate 151 

Morley, John, on newspaper- 
reading 42 

Morley, Samuel, his openness 
to new impressions, note.. 168 

Moses, his originality 310 

Mozart, the composer, what he 
said to the boy, 22; in early 
youth, 164, 165; how he 
composed 326 

Nagle," Dr. John 128 

Napoleon Bonaparte, his^ indus- 
try, 78; his occupations as 

a boy ...162 

Napoleons, the, compared with 

Chatham 104 

Newcomen, Thomas 97 

Newspaper reading 4o> 4^ 



PAGB 

Newton, Sir Isaac, his genius, 
76, 80; Voltaire on, 153; 
his boyhood, 159; how re- 
garded by the_ Frenchman, 
284; how he discovered the 
law of gravitation 290 

Nobleman who wished to com- 
mit suicide 278 

Noblemen, how they have 
worked, 235; the degen- 
eracy of the French 236 

Nordhoff, Mr., on a poor boy 
and a rich 237 

O'Connell, Daniel 55 

O'Connor, Charles, on success 

in his profession 51 

Opie, the painter, in early boy- 
hood 164 

Orange, William of.. 143, 144, 179 
Orator, the, how he works, 81; 
position and influence of, 

100, loi 

Ossian, his poetry 264 

Parker, Theodore, on books, 47- 
8; his life 6a 

Parker, Willard, how first in- 
spired to study surgery.. 1 73 

Pare, Ambrose, his beneficent 
career 174 

Palissy, the Potter, how first 
roused 170 

Palmerston, Lord, on the prime 
of life, note i6S 

Parton, James, on men of gen- 
ius, 329; on Victor Hugo's 
speech 335 

Pascal, Blaise, his use of the ba- 
rometer, 96; his early 
studies 159 

Payne, Joseph, on education and 

savagery 44 

Peel, Sir Robert, when a little 
boy, 165; defender of the 
Corn Laws .179 

Perry, Geo., on the laboring 
poor 158 

Peter the Great, how he made 
a navy 154 

Phillips, Wendell, on news- 
papers, 42; on Toussaint 
I'Ouverture, 141; his first 
speech 322 

Physiologists, the, on the grow- 
ing brain, 224; on _ the 
period of greatest activity.323 

Pitt, William, compared with 
his father 218 

Pollock, his "Course of Time ".153 



tNDEX^ 



3^7 



PAGE 

Pitt, Mr., (>T, 68; compared 
with his father, 218; com- 
pared with Fox, 248; his 
treachery to Hastings. .. .280 

Pitt, the younger, his proposi- 
tion 357 

Pitt, Mr., see Chatham, Lord. 

Plato, his plagiarism 301 

Poe, E. A., how he composed 

the Raven 325 

Preachers, where the eminent 
come from, 269; how some 
compose their sermons. .. .324 

Pope, _ Alex., his dictum, 36; 
his_ industry, 79; his pre- 
cocity, 165; his manner of 
composing 321 

Priestley, Dr., his discoveries.. 97 

Printer's trade, as a school of 
instruction, 35; how it 
makes editors 193 

Prof. Virchow, the marvelous 

amount of good he did... 3 54 

Pushkin, on Gogol's master- 
piece 255 

Quarryman, remark of 98 

Rachel, Mademoiselle, anecdote 
about 13s 

Raleigh, Sir Walter, his name. 53 

iReade, Charles, the source of his 
inspiration, 294; his late 
development, 168; on Shake- 
speare, 303 ; how he went 
out on adventure 325 

Reading aloud, its value in edu- 
cation 194 

Reading Circles 195, 197, 198 

Redpath, James, speech at the 

Twilight Club 350 

Remenyi, Herr, on men of 

genius 266 

Renan, Ernst, _ on expression, 

34; on writing well 176 

Reporting, not often good, 131; 

for the press 319 

Reporter, young, advice of edi- 
tor .to 320 

Rhyme_ and alliterative verse, 

origin of 264 

Rich man not always successful. 3 53 

Ripley, George, on writing.... 80 

Robertson, Frederick, influence 

of mountain scenery on.. 2 53 

Rogers, the poet, on literature 

as a recreation 234 

Rogers, the sculptor, what in- 
spired him 287 

Romance in the meanest hut, 
J31; the child of reality.. 132 



PAGE 

Rousseau, Jean Jacques, inci- 
dent in his life, 133; Par- 
ton on his character 330 

Rush, Dr. Benj., on newspapers. 41 

Ruskin, John, on industry, 82; 

on reading, 191; on women.199 

Russia, compared with Switzer- 
land, 256; pessimism in.... 258 

Russians, their low character, 
note 2S9 

Sauveur, his system 73 

Saviour, our, his sayings 320 

Schem, Professor 72 

Schiller, Friedrich, his birth- 
place, 13; his biography by 
Carlyle, 15; his youth and 
schooling, 163; inspired by 

Goethe's talk 310 

Schopenhauer, on works of 
genius, 29; on the early 

morning 323 

Schoeder, Magnus, as a teacher. 197 
Schurz, Carl, his English, 72; 

as Senator of the U. S....104 
Scotsmen, eminent in the United 

States, note 262 

Scott, Walter, how he wrote, 
2T\ how first inspired to 
write, 171; how he com- 
posed Waverley, 181; his 
early experiences and sur- 
roundings, 240, 241; on the 
influence of Scottish scen- 
ery, 254; on the common 
people, 293; how he ob- 
served, 307; his habit of 
dictating, 319; when he 
wrote best, 323; his hero- 
ism 356 

Scotland, compared with Russia, 
259; never conquered, 262; 
her contribution to the in- 
tellectual men of the United 
States, note, 262; Dr. Hal- 
sey on, 263; Curran on. ..263 
Scudder, Mr., on Hawthorne. .288 
Seward, Wm. H., a short- 
range marksman 145 

Shakespeare, Wm., his birth- 
place, 10; his power, 27; 
those who read him, 34; 
on expression, 36; White 
on, 37; his activity, 154; 
his first efforts, 177; his 
Julius Caesar, 192; his esti- 
mate of women, 199; Hud- 
son's edition of, 198; as 
a teacher of human nature, 
200; the mother of, 222; 
bow his life may be writ* 



'3^8 



INDiSJS^ 



PAGE 

Shakespeare — Continued. 

ten, 223; his early expe- 
riences and surroundings, 
241 ; how he knew the cir- 
culation of the blood, 291; 
did he know Harvey, note, 
291; sources of his plays, 
29 s; his characters _ com- 
pared with the same in his- 
tory, 296; a pure edition 
of, note, 296; has no origi- 
nal plots, 300; his origi- 
nality 302 

Shakespearean Reading Circles, 

195-198 

Shelley, P. B., his listening to 
language of the spheres, 
35; his manner of com- 
posing 321 

Sheridan, R. B., his first effort, 
50; his careful prepara- 
tions, 79; one of his tri- 
umphs 101 

Sill, Professor E. R., his death 
and character, 38; on ex- 
pression 39 

Slick, Sam, on reading and talk- 
ing 116 

Smiles, Samuel, his books, 56; 
on language learning, 71; 
on reading 75 

Smith, Adam, on ability 186 

Society, that of superior people. 49 

Southey, Robert, how he worked, 
292; his poems on the 
Moors, 313; his short pieces3i4 

Spelling by words, its useless- 
ness 189 

Spencer, B. T., on genius 221 

Spenser, E., how he borrowed. 3 00 

Stedman, E. C, what he says 
of one's forte, 21; of 
genius 26 

StratfordKon-Avon, imaginary 
visit to, 10; described by 
W. Irving 241 

Stewart, A. T., how he became 

a merchant 19 

Stock speculations, why wrong.. 355 

Stowe, Mrs. Harriet Beecher, 
whence she derived Uncle 
Tom's Cabin... 308 

Swift, Jonathan, his aims, 22 ; 
his Tale of a Tub, 64; its 
influence on Cobbett 191 

Swinburne, on Hugo 141 

Swinton, John, a long-range 
marksman, 156; on young 
men, 176; on rich men.. 238 

Switzerland, compared with Rus- 



PACE 

sia, 256; Thackeray on the 
beauty of 253 

Talent and genius compared, 

141, 143 

Teacher, young, whose ideal 

was destroyed 1 73 

Teachers, who shall become, 
204; influence of, 205; 
who are good 206 

Teaching in public schools, 201, 
202 ; in private schools, 202 ; 
what it now means, 205; 
disadvantages and advan- 
tages of 207 

Thackeray, the novelist, on Swiss 
scenery, 253; his manner 
of composing 321 

Thurlow, Lord, on peers 236 

Times, the London, how edited. 269 

Tasso, Torquato, and his critics. 89 

Torricelli, his invention 96 

Travelling in imagination, 10; 
in Europe, 14; influence of.2Si 

Tribune, New York, acknowl- 
edgment to 282 

Trollope, Anthony, his way of 
working, 82; author's opin- 
ion of 319 

Tucker, Professor, on preach- 
ing 91 

Twilight Club, author's expe- 
rience in 298 

Tyndall, John, on a flower.... 289 

Utopia, Sir Thomas More's. . . .150 
Unfinished prayer 136 

Value of riches .354 

Vega, Lope de, born in a city . . 269 
Verdi, the composer, his early 
education, 166; how he 

composed the Miserere 323 

Vico, what he showed 299 

Virgil, how he borrowed 300 

Visiting Europe, dreaming of, 

9; realizing the dream of. 12 
Voltaire, his idea of great men, 
152; his productiveness in 
old age, 168; his Letters 
from England stir Rousseau 
into thought, 171; his habit 
in writing, 181; his devo- 
tion to business, 281; on 
men of talent, 284; his 
method of writing history, 
302; on the habit of com- 
position 313 

Von Ense, Varnhagen 131 



1NDE3C4 



369 



FAGB 

Walcott, Dr., helps Opie the 

painter 164 

Wall-street merchants 94 

Walsh, W. S., on authorship, 
84; on the brain, 216; on 

emergencies 22S 

Ward, Artemus, his love of ap- 
plause 340 

Ward, J. Q. A., anecdote of.. 163 
Waters, David B., his fate.... 128 
Watt, James, how he found the 

missing link 97 

Wayland, Dr., his sermon on 

missions 91 

Wealth, its true nature 94 

Webster, Daniel, on Gray's 
Elegy, 52 ; his preparation, 
76; in the Senate, 102; his 
power and style as an 
orator, 106; compared with 
Burke 106; influence of 
early surroundings on. . . .250 
West, Benjamin, his precocity. 166 
Whately, Archbishop, on de- 
bating societies 114 

Whewell, on unconscious ease. 312 
Whipple, E. P., on knowledge, 
132; his assertion concern- 
ing inspirations 168, 317. 



FAGS 
White, R. G., on Shakespeare, 
37. 302; on grammatical 
rules 192 

Whittier, the poet, how he 
wrote Barbara Frietchie. ..288 

Wilkie, the painter, whence he 
derived his pictures 287 

Wilson, the ornithologist 18 

Wilson, Henry, his early hard- 
ships 69 

Wilson, Professor, influence of 
mountain scenery on, 252; 
how he spent his vacations.28x 

Wolfe, General, on Gray's 
" Elegy " 52 

Women, their character as com- 
pared with men, 199, 200; 
as teachers, 208; as wives 
and mothers, 221, 222; mari» 
tal relations of, 223; edu- 
cation of 224 

Worcester, Earl of 97 

Wordsworth, Wm., on a vernal 
wood, 24s; on the influ- 
ence of scenery 254 

Writing of authors, rapid hand. 319 

Zola, on the fellowship of au- 
thors, note • • ID 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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